Best Keyord Singular or Plural

[suntzu]

I'm optimizing a site for Mens Hats.

One of the biggest keyword search phrases is “man hat” with 10,833 searches.

I could not find much on the big 3 G,Y, MSN for that phrase.

After running “men’s hats” through the Overture Keyword Tool It displays the results as “man hat” in the singular form.

Which keyword phrase would you optimize for or should I do both?

Do you think if I optimized for “man hat” it would show up.
I just think that “men’s hats” is a better phrase.

Thanks

[edited by: engine at 3:28 pm (utc) on April 5, 2005]
[edit reason] formatting [/edit]

[EstoreSeeker]

I think I'll recommend you these two "men's hats" and "mens hats" .......over the "man hat".
best luck.

[edit reason] No urls, thanks.tos [webmasterworld.com][/edit]

[edited by: mona at 8:01 am (utc) on April 5, 2005]

[peewhy]

I can't imagine 'Man Hat' being a more popular keyword over 'Mens Hats'. In cobtrast Hat suppliers works better that Hats Suppliers.

[suntzu]

I agree. I just thought I'd better get a second opinion.

Thanks

[peewhy]

I bet you're please it's not trousers that you are selling ...trouser or trousers?

[mosaic service]

for me it is always plural form of my keywords.

pleople are in the habbit of using plurals forms mosts ofs thes times. ;)

[peewhy]

Not always the case, looking at my stats I see

widget suppliers
widget makers
widget distrubuters
more than
suppliers of widgets
makers of widgets
etc

I'll almost guarantee that regional dialect plays an important role as much as the type of customer. Consumer may search singular whilst trader would search plural.

Personally, I'd optimise two seperate pages for both styles.

[Eltiti]

When you use the Overture KW tool, you should be aware that it uses a form of "stemming"! (It "reduces" your "men’s hats" to "man hat".)

There are other tools that don't stem, like WordTracker and the Google AdWords estimator; for this reason alone I'd always use multiple sources when researching keywords!

[Robert Charlton]

suntzu - Welcome to the forums.

...always use multiple sources when researching keywords!

Good advice. Here's a thread with several posts about the differences between Google, Overture, and Wordtracker.

The best keyword tool?
[webmasterworld.com...]

Though the Google AdWords Keyword Tool doesn't give numbers, it does give the best idea of how people actually search. The tool is at...

[adwords.google.com...]

For men's hats, I'd enter the following terms, one at a time, to get suggestions...

men's hats
mens hats
hats

Be sure to optimize for some of the longer phrases. They're more precise, easier to rank on, and while less often searched, will generally "convert" (ie, lead to sales) more often than a very general term like "men's hats."