How to success in attempt to target 1 word only

Strategies

[silverbytes]

Do you have any experience on targeting just 1 term? Not a keyphrase, but the big term. Typically a cityname. What strategy would you implement to go for it?
Titles has to contain many words for instance...
Any ideas?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Start by finding out who owns the domain cityname.com and ask them to sell it to you for $100 ;)

[steve]

Would a theme pyramid do it? for example:

first level- cityname

second level pages linked to first level- cityname hotels - cityname bars - cityname resturants

third level pages linked to second level- cityname 1 star hotels - cityname 2 star hotels - cityname 3 star hotels

You get the general idea, the importance of the first level page is bolstered by the second level pages. Which in turn are bolstered by the third level ones.

[silverbytes]

Do you think buying the cityname.com domain is really important on serp? Really?

[kpaul]

it doesn't hurt to have the domain, although i've seen sites w/out the cityname in the domain rank higher than the domain with the cityname in it.

depends on PR, inbound links, on page factors.

are you just targeting one cityname?

[OCSupertones]

I think the city name in the url is vitally important.

if you cant get city.com try city-online.com or something similar.

brandon

[silverbytes]

I'm targeting many but no grat success there :)
I see cityname is very much searched than keyprases including cityname so why not?

By the way do you think cityname-something is better than citynamesomething? I 've heard dashes are better than all togheter...

[hp11]

I have used hyphens in my domains and I believe it has helped my rankings. But, I always ask myself - to what extent did it help? It could have been plenty of other issues. SEO has so many parts to it and each little part makes up the whole equation.

Also, hyphens can be confusing for offline visitors. So, I basically use www.mydomain.com when advertising offline and www.my-domain.com when advertising online and for SEO purposes. I just use a 301 redirect to tie them together.

[ken_b]

I see cityname is very much searched than keyprases including cityname so why not?

Because the competition will be fierce, for one thing. While you are struggling to get ranked for "cityname", your competition will be paying off the mortgage, driving new cars and vacationing on the money they earned from "cityname +blah +blah +blah".

[silverbytes]

but cityname bla has 1% of serches made for cityname, if I hit cityname, I'll be on real vacations I guess.

[incrediBILL]

but cityname bla has 1% of serches made for cityname, if I hit cityname, I'll be on real vacations I guess.

But you can easily get 100s of "cityname blah" keywords which is far easier than trying to get just "cityname".

If you add up 1% enough times guess what you get?

A 4 digit monthly AdSense check.

[added]

Quick for instance:

I have my main keyword (aka your cityname) in top 10 on all search engines, and it generates huge search results bringing many tens of thousands of visitors to my site a month. However, in terms of total traffic sent by the search engines it's only 2.7% as my equivalent "cityname blah" SERPS send the additional 97.3% of the traffic.

So work hard for that one keyword :)

[silverbytes]

I still think that making the effort of getting cityname is the big pot, and understant getting cityname somethingelse is far easier and not much more than this depending how many hundreds of people searches for that daily...

[incrediBILL]

I used to think like that too.

Then I wised up and started making some serious money.

[emoshe]

Well, I have a similar case, I'll be happy to hear what you think:

I'm targeting a niche, and the most searched term is a single keyword, which according to Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool, has about 10,000 searches a month (not a lot). The next phrase after it, 'keyword blah', has only about 1000 searches a month. The rest phrases, has about 50-150 searches amount and there are about 10 of them.

From my expirience with PPC, targeting 'Keyword' itself converts the best, but also 'Keyword blah' converts quite well.

Would you try to target 'Keyword' alone, or you would go for 'Keyword Blah', provided that the top spot in Google SERP for 'Keyword' is Keyword.com website.

BTW: I may have an opportunity to buy Keyword.us or Keyword.biz - if that helps.

Would love to hear what you think. Thank you..

[hp11]

Would you try to target 'Keyword' alone, or you would go for 'Keyword Blah', provided that the top spot in Google SERP for 'Keyword' is Keyword.com website.

I would target a 'keyword' alone as long as I know what I am up against and I am prepared to put the time in. Are you targeting a keyword that is held by sites that have thousands of IBL's or a few? How many IBL's do you already have in comparison to what you need? Is this keyword very competitive? Are these top sites very SEO'd?

[incrediBILL]

according to Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool, has about 10,000 searches a month

Overture is just a tool, and is about as accurate as Alexa, it's not.

Use it as a guideline, not the gospel.

[emoshe]

Well, the competition is about 4,000,000 sites, and the 1st. site (keyword.com) has about 2,200 IBLs. I currently have no site with not IBLs for this keyword. I may have the opportunity to buy keyword.biz - it's in negotiation right now.

what do you say?

[silverbytes]

Hi I have a #1 competitor on "keyword" with 1 backlink only 75,900 sites listed for that sarch mine is #16 on that search since my page is about "something keyword" and not keyword.

Should I concentrate in getting backlinks to that page using "keyword"?

Developing new page or pages?

What else?

[schizop]

It depends what city ,if you want to rank for a famous world wide city , maybe in 5 years you can rank among the top 20.plus you will need a few thousands inbound links from authority sites among them many .gov .edu .ac ech.....Secondly you must know the city very well or better to say you must be living in that city ,you can't use copy cat content and pictures maps ech,you must Do It Your self. You must work hard to make you page top, and finally if you never been in that city or you never lived there for years ,just forget it.

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[silverbytes]

Why do you say .gov .edu links? Are those more relevant than others?