How to target synonymous keywords?

[hangsu]

Hi all,
I'm working on a website that markets a certain niche b2b product that's known by 4 different names and I'd like to rank for all of the terms that this product can be referred to.

Unfortunately, it's not a product widely-known enough that Google would semantically understand that these terms are synonymous.
Using "term1 | term2 | term3 | term4" as my title tag is also not an option, as that would make the title far too long (and ridiculous)

One of my more successful competitors is getting around this by putting up multiple product pages for this same product, but with slightly different (thin if you ask me) content, and title tags that match the different terms.

I'm wondering if anyone here has encountered this problem and found a solution?
I believe my content to be better than my competitors, but there are still 2 of the 4 terms that we simply don't rank for because they don't fit into the title.

Thanks so much for your time.

[piatkow]

Depends how much content you have to play with on the page.

Obviously I can't know the issues about your product or your particular site but I would concentrate on the most common term or terms in the title but try and build the rest into any descriptive text.

For example in the music business I would refer to a CD variously as an "album" and a "recording" rather than use the term "CD" on every occasion.

[nakkers]

If it's working for your competitor, I would say to just copy what he is doing.

[hangsu]

Thanks for your reply piatkow.

I'll give your suggestion a try, but I'm not hopeful that Google will index me for an alternate term if it doesn't appear in the title.
Perhaps the best solution is to create multiple landing pages as my competitor is doing.

[hangsu]

Nakkers,

That's probably the only real solution here. I was hoping for a cleaner way since making two or three landing pages for the same product feels wrong. Thanks.

[netmeg]

If you only have ONE product, then your options are limited, but there are a few things you could try. Making separate landing pages for each term, in my experience, that's not going to be a sustainable solution nowadays - might work for a while, but unlikely to continue.

So, figure out which is the most common term, call the product that, and work the other terms into the features and benefits on the product page. If you have a way to add auxiliary or supporting content about the product, then work those terms into that content as well - try adding ONE link with the alternative anchor text (to start) and see if that helps that term move up.

I run into this all the time with my ecommerce clients - generally there's not just the one product, but a family of products where there are two or three terms that are close to equally common. In that case, I try to mix it up - the industrial models (category and product names) will be referred to as Term A, the portable models (category and product names) will be Term B, the accessories use Term C, with enough related products (linked SENSIBLY) to make sure the customer finds what he needs however he gets into the site.

It doesn't work all the time, but it works more often than it doesn't. So far.

[hangsu]

You're right in that there are multiple terms that are almost equally common. To make things worse, some of these terms can also refer to other things totally unrelated to this product. And of course, those terms get much higher volume as a result of the ambiguity. The problem is that since the product is niche and new technology, the industry hasn't yet come up with a name that everyone agrees on.

Thanks for your input. I do have a good amount of content to work with so I can certainly start by diversifying my term usage.

[tangor]

Title is not the only place that search engines find keywords. The use of Heading can also provide that info. Use Section to allow use of H1 for each of the different mfg (assumption) of the same product. After all, these are all the same widget, right?

Title: Widget
Section
ht1 abc widget
section
h1 def widget
section
h1 ghi widget
section
h1 jkl widget

[Storiale]

1. Gaining backlinks with more than just one version of the word - get links to all 4 variation pages (see #2)
2. Remember folder/URL spellings example.com/one-spelling/ example/1spelling/ etc.
3. Original content in each section (don't do find and replace.... much :-) )
4. Choose only 2 keyword variations for each folder/URL and cross promote them for each page with anchor text links
-- 2 variations per page in Title, Description, H1 and H2, anchor-text linking
Result: 4 pages = anchor text link for primary keyword + secondary variation max 2 per page

Not else I can recommend...