Widgetthing versus Widget Thing- Crucial Question!

How to find out which draws the most searches?

[Cheapskate]

Hello to all,

I posted a few months ago on this topic without success. Is there a way to find out the search volume for a word which may also be spelled / searched using a space? A Google search using "widget thing" (with space) brings up an entirely different set of ranking results than a search for "widgetthing" (no space). The Overture Search Term suggestion tool will only show results for the space version, "widget thing" even if you put in "widgetthing"
(It also fails to differentiate plurals / singulars) Yes, yes, I know that it would be prudent to optimize for both but I'm going to give one version my best shot on the home page. Does anyone know of a ranking tool which will differentiate, if such a thing even exists. The word/s in question is probably my most important broad-based search term.

Thanks again, Cheapskate

[Marcia]

If it's the main keyword you'd probably best do a page for each to cover all bases, but I suppose it's your homepage you're most concerned about in this case.

You could list all possible combos and phrase variations and do Wordtracker for a day's worth to check that out. If it's that important an issue and would be the main source of traffic and also influence how you go about getting anchor text done - vary that a bit, BTW - it's definitely worth extra effort.

Probably your best bet would be to make an investment in running an AdWords campaign for the variations. First, you'd get targeted traffic and maybe make some $ from it and you'd have some realistic knowledge to go by.