Different keywords, same meaning. What would you do?

[Upsilon]

I am in a bit of a difficult situation. To make you understand without revealing my niche, let's create an imaginary scenario.

Let's imagine that American football (the one that resembles rugby) doesn't exist and the term "football" means in the US what it means for the rest of the world. However, the term "soccer" exists too, and it means the same exact thing.

So now you have two terms which mean the exact same thing: soccer and football. Furthermore, let's imagine that the term "soccer" is known mostly by those who are practicing it, while the term "football" is way more common.

With these in mind, let's take the keywords:

• Football drills
• Soccer drills

If you were to write an article, the content for these keywords would be exactly the same because the terms have the exact same meaning. This is the situation I am in.

So my question is:
Would you write an article for each term, even though the content would virtually be the same?

Considerations:

1. I have ran a Google search and each keyword has different websites ranking on the first page. Therefore, even though my terms can be used interchangeably, you can't use a single article to rank for both terms.
2. We decided that the word "soccer" is not as well known as the word "football"; therefore, the competition will be less fierce for the keyword "soccer drills".

Thank you in advance!

 

[CCarter]

It depends on the audience and one of the reasons you should create a customer profile. If you are writing for the people that practice it than use "soccer", that's who you want to read it and that's how THEY search for it.

If you are writing just for the more common users than use "football" since that's they way THEY search for it and get a better understanding of what the people that practice it do.

It's sort of like a doctor or dentist or programmers, they use jargon/language that is geared towards people that are within that industry.

Let's use programmers: they'll talk about the difference between low-level and high-level programming languages and the benefits of databases stored within RAM versus the HardDrive.

Everyone else thinks "programmer" = "IT", basically if you can turn on a computer you are "IT" and that means magically programmers can also design, do SEO, do PPC, or designers can code and fix your computer that's riddled with malware, or they can fix a hardware problem or turn on bluetooth to your toothbrush. Anyone that can turn on a computer is "IT".

In that scenario how you write content for and the terms/jargon you use will be geared towards the audience.

If the audience consists of people that think "anyone that can turn on a computer is IT" then don't use language/jargon that coders use to talk to each other.

If the audience consists of coders/programmers than don't use the word "IT" anywhere within the content.

Understand the customer profile of your audience and you'll have a clear visual of who you should be creating content for.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

Write 2 articles, one for "soccer drills" and one for "football drills". How I come about this is that the two words are not synonyms per consideration 1 and that the reason for consideration 1 is that Google took localization into consideration. Therefore, to build upon your example, the article on "soccer drills" would be for the US reader whereas the article for "football drills" would be for the global reader, minus the US.

As for, if writing two articles is economically viable, I say do it but I don't know your exact situation. For me, if the article has a chance of paying for itself within a year, I'd go for it. If you calculate the volume per month, your predicted ranking, the SERP CTR at that ranking, the commission amount, and your conversion rate, you can figure out what's your predicted revenue per month for that keyword and article combination. (I target only 1 keyword per article). For me, if an article and keyword combination breaks even within a year, it's all good. We're in year 4 of our business and I'm happy with this policy. If you can't afford to operate like this, it's because your startup is undercapitalized.

 

[Upsilon]

It depends on the audience and one of the reasons you should create a customer profile. If you are writing for the people that practice it than use "soccer", that's who you want to read it and that's how THEY search for it.

If you are writing just for the more common users than use "football" since that's they way THEY search for it and get a better understanding of what the people that practice it do.

It's sort of like a doctor or dentist or programmers, they use jargon/language that is geared towards people that are within that industry.

Let's use programmers: they'll talk about the difference between low-level and high-level programming languages and the benefits of databases stored within RAM versus the HardDrive.

Everyone else thinks "programmer" = "IT", basically if you can turn on a computer you are "IT" and that means magically programmers can also design, do SEO, do PPC, or designers can code and fix your computer that's riddled with malware, or they can fix a hardware problem or turn on bluetooth to your toothbrush. Anyone that can turn on a computer is "IT".

In that scenario how you write content for and the terms/jargon you use will be geared towards the audience.

If the audience consists of people that think "anyone that can turn on a computer is IT" then don't use language/jargon that coders use to talk to each other.

If the audience consists of coders/programmers than don't use the word "IT" anywhere within the content.

Understand the customer profile of your audience and you'll have a clear visual of who you should be creating content for.

I get it and it does make sense. After reading your and Fry's reply, I decided to create both.

I think if I force it a bit, I can make the article for the lesser known keyword geared towards the highly specifics of the topic, while the broader keyword can be an article geared towards the basics of the industry, if it makes sense. Then I can interlink each other and also outreach for those articles, because they both have skyscraper potential.

The reason why I want to do both is because by the nature of these keywords, with the broader one I can niche up towards the more general topic (e.g. niching up from say "junior golfing" to "golfing" in general) while the lesser known keyword is a good asset to stay in my sub-niche (junior golfing).

Thank you for taking the time to reply. It made me decide which article to start with - the one in the sub-niche because this is what I am focusing on right now.

Write 2 articles, one for "soccer drills" and one for "football drills". How I come about this is that the two words are not synonyms per consideration 1 and that the reason for consideration 1 is that Google took localization into consideration. Therefore, to build upon your example, the article on "soccer drills" would be for the US reader whereas the article for "football drills" would be for the global reader, minus the US.

As for, if writing two articles is economically viable, I say do it but I don't know your exact situation. For me, if the article has a chance of paying for itself within a year, I'd go for it. If you calculate the volume per month, your predicted ranking, the SERP CTR at that ranking, the commission amount, and your conversion rate, you can figure out what's your predicted revenue per month for that keyword and article combination. (I target only 1 keyword per article). For me, if an article and keyword combination breaks even within a year, it's all good. We're in year 4 of our business and I'm happy with this policy. If you can't afford to operate like this, it's because your startup is undercapitalized.

The difference for my actual topic is based on awareness/information (the fact that that specific topic has another name too) rather than geo-based as in the example I had given. I do understand your point, however.

I guess you could say it is economically viable because I am writing them and I have all the time in the world to do so. I am not pressured by lack of money either. Having said that, the website is still in the starting phase, so could you please recommend me how to go about calculating the predicted ranking, SERP CTR, etc? Mind you, it is an informational keyword, not commercial.

As for the keyword targeting, I also do one per article.

In the end, as I've mentioned in my reply to CCarter, I decided to go with both. Thank you!

 

[Philip J. Fry]

@Upsilon

1. From https://www.advancedwebranking.com/ctrstudy/ , if you rank #1, it means you'll get a 38% CTR on the SERP. If you rank #2 you get 12% and #3 gets 7.4%.
2. If you use a tool such as Keyword Sheeter, where it gives you the competitiveness of a keyword, you can get the competition level for a keyword.
3. If you download the keywords you already rank for from Google Search Console, you can obtain a list of keywords you rank 1, 2, and 3 for.
4. If you run the list from #3 into the tool from #2, you'll find out how competitive your site is: you'll figure out, on average, you can rank 1 if the competition level is X; you can rank 2 if the competition level is Y; and you can rank 3 if the competition level is Z.
5. Given your list of keywords that you plan on writing content for, run it through the tool in #2. This will give you the competitiveness level of the keywords you plan on writing content for.
6. For all keywords below a certain competition level, you can expect to rank 1 for it. For the next segment, you can expect to rank 2 and so forth (eg If you know your site ranks 1 for .23 competition level keywords from #4, you can expect that your site will rank 1 for all keywords with 0 competition to .23 competition from #5.)
7. Then, for all keywords where you should expect to rank 1 for, multiply it by the SERP CTR for rank 1. Do this for rank 2 and rank 3. This is your estimate traffic if you rank for that keyword at that rank and only that keyword with no long tail keywords.
8. For the volume in #7, I find that a 2.5x multiple is a good amount, to account for that page ranking for long tail queries as well.
9. For the volume in #8, multiply it by your conversion rate and average revenue per sale (or average affiliate commission per signup or whatever). This is the estimated revenue for that keyword. For me, I multiply it by 12 to figure the revenue per year. If it is less than the cost of an article, I select the keyword and order the article.

The steps are for an already established site. If your site is new, refer to an old site of yours for #4. Then you can use that as a gauge for how competitive your SEO, is as well as how much time and effort it takes you to reach that competition level. So, let's say OldSite.com is competition .2 and it took you as a solo-entrepreneur 1 year of working on your weekends to reach that level. A good guess is that, for your new site, it'll take you 1 year of working on your weekends to rank for .2 level keywords. This is also why I no longer do pet project nor do I sell sites. I just tell an employee to do steps 1-9 for a topic and he does it and sends it to writers. So much easier.

 

[Upsilon]

@Upsilon

1. From https://www.advancedwebranking.com/ctrstudy/ , if you rank #1, it means you'll get a 38% CTR on the SERP. If you rank #2 you get 12% and #3 gets 7.4%.
2. If you use a tool such as Keyword Sheeter, where it gives you the competitiveness of a keyword, you can get the competition level for a keyword.
3. If you download the keywords you already rank for from Google Search Console, you can obtain a list of keywords you rank 1, 2, and 3 for.
4. If you run the list from #3 into the tool from #2, you'll find out how competitive your site is: you'll figure out, on average, you can rank 1 if the competition level is X; you can rank 2 if the competition level is Y; and you can rank 3 if the competition level is Z.
5. Given your list of keywords that you plan on writing content for, run it through the tool in #2. This will give you the competitiveness level of the keywords you plan on writing content for.
6. For all keywords below a certain competition level, you can expect to rank 1 for it. For the next segment, you can expect to rank 2 and so forth (eg If you know your site ranks 1 for .23 competition level keywords from #4, you can expect that your site will rank 1 for all keywords with 0 competition to .23 competition from #5.)
7. Then, for all keywords where you should expect to rank 1 for, multiply it by the SERP CTR for rank 1. Do this for rank 2 and rank 3. This is your estimate traffic if you rank for that keyword at that rank and only that keyword with no long tail keywords.
8. For the volume in #7, I find that a 2.5x multiple is a good amount, to account for that page ranking for long tail queries as well.
9. For the volume in #8, multiply it by your conversion rate and average revenue per sale (or average affiliate commission per signup or whatever). This is the estimated revenue for that keyword. For me, I multiply it by 12 to figure the revenue per year. If it is less than the cost of an article, I select the keyword and order the article.

The steps are for an already established site. If your site is new, refer to an old site of yours for #4. Then you can use that as a gauge for how competitive your SEO, is as well as how much time and effort it takes you to reach that competition level. So, let's say OldSite.com is competition .2 and it took you as a solo-entrepreneur 1 year of working on your weekends to reach that level. A good guess is that, for your new site, it'll take you 1 year of working on your weekends to rank for .2 level keywords. This is also why I no longer do pet project nor do I sell sites. I just tell an employee to do steps 1-9 for a topic and he does it and sends it to writers. So much easier.

I am a bit confused in regards to step 3. In GSC I can only see the queries that get impressions and clicks, not necessarily where I rank. Based on that, should I perform a Google Search and see where exactly in the SERPS I can find that particular page?

Honestly, I am shocked at how much value people offer on this forum. Most digital marketing communities don't even come close to this one. Thank you very much!

 

[Philip J. Fry]

I am a bit confused in regards to step 3. In GSC I can only see the queries that get impressions and clicks, not necessarily where I rank. Based on that, should I perform a Google Search and see where exactly in the SERPS I can find that particular page?

Honestly, I am shocked at how much value people offer on this forum. Most digital marketing communities don't even come close to this one. Thank you very much!

No, you don't know how to use GSC. Learn how to use GSC. It's free and official data from Google. You need to click on the box that says "average position."

You're welcome but I'm concerned. Did you know that the PageRank algorithm's methodology is freely available? It was Sergey Brin and Larry Page's PhD thesis paper. Did you know that how they built the early version of Google was documented and freely available too? It was their PhD project to confirm their theory. Both are available from the Stanford website freely and for free. Also, the tools I mentioned are free or costs $5/use. The steps I listed was just well applied reason given my understanding of the web, websites, search engines, and search engine optimization tools.

What you need is reading and contemplation, in addition to dialog. The value might seem high, that what I said is perceived to be able to produce a lot of money and the cost to do so is so low, but I was able to come to these conclusions by contemplation, reading, dialog, and practice. Unfortunately, critical thinking isn't really taught in academia until grad school. You're going to have a hard time finding similar things in the market.

I'm glad you're here.

 

[Upsilon]

@Philip J. Fry

No, you don't know how to use GSC. Learn how to use GSC. It's free and official data from Google. You need to click on the box that says "average position."

Understood. Since I am taking it a bit slower on the weekends (i.e. no article writing) I will dive deep into GSC and Analytics and learn to find my way around them.

What you need is reading and contemplation, in addition to dialog. The value might seem high, that what I said is perceived to be able to produce a lot of money and the cost to do so is so low, but I was able to come to these conclusions by contemplation, reading, dialog, and practice. Unfortunately, critical thinking isn't really taught in academia until grad school. You're going to have a hard time finding similar things in the market.

You are right. All my past success (which is nothing praise-worthy but at the time was good enough) came from people spoon feeding me. I have to snap out of that. I am used to be told what to do to get results and do just that. I guess it's either snap out of it, or find a day job because that is the kind of dynamic I am operating in.

I'm glad you're here.

Me too. I am glad I can learn from people like you and all the others posting on this forum. Thank you for taking the time to offer your insights and giving us an opportunity to grow without banging our heads against dozens of walls.