~~~High Search Engine Rankings~~~
From: Bill in Ko Lanta
I live on and promote an island called Ko Lanta off the coast of
southern Thailand. Living and working here is paradise, but
optimisation worries are giving me a headache!
KO/KOH/MULTIWORD CONFUSION
The word Ko means 'island' in Thai, but is often spelled 'koh'. We
believe most people search for ko lanta, but not necessarily. To
compound matters, many people spell/search the two words as one,
kolanta or kohlanta. This causes all sorts of problems for us in SE
keywords, domain name registrations etc.
We cannot use both spellings on one page.
Firstly, can you tell me if the search engines see ko lanta as kolanta
in a domain name. Would I be better off registering variations with
kolanta or ko-lanta in the domain name?
Secondly, regarding meta keywords, using both ko + lanta plus a topic
description like 'travel', 'resorts, gives me three-word keywords, and
everybody tells me stick to two-word meta-keywords.
Thirdly, optimising pages. Do I make an optimised page for 'ko lanta',
then make a duplicate page with changed spelling optimised for
'kolanta'? Fourthly, do I register a domain for ko lanta / kolanta and
a separate domain for koh lanta / kohlanta?
Lastly, should I vary capitalization of my keywords in metatags and
descriptions (I can't get away with this on the site unless I use all
caps in a headline).
I have decided to register domain names for both the Ko and Koh domain
variants, with the main site being on Ko, and place alternately
spelled home pages on the Koh domains linked and leading into the Ko
sites.
What would you suggest?
Many thanks.
Bill Andersen
Ko Lanta Net
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Hey Bill,
Sounds like you live in a beautiful place. One of my son's teachers
moved to Thailand over a year ago for what was supposed to be a
one-year teaching stint, but she and her husband loved it so much,
they are now staying indefinitely!
On to your questions...
>We cannot use both spellings on one page.
Well, you know what? You just may be able to do that! I can't take
credit for this idea, as I had another reader once email this to me,
plus I've since heard it other places. However, it just may be the
easiest/best solution for your particular needs. I'm thinking that
you could use both spelling variations by simply putting one version,
e.g., Ko Lanta, at the top of the page and then in parentheses, or
underneath it, simply put something like "also known as (aka) Koh
Lanta." You could even briefly discuss how some people spell it as
Kolanta and/or Kohlanta. This way, you've got all your variations
right there in the body text copy and can also support all of them in
your Title tag and Meta description tag. I would go so far as to say
that your Title tag could even be something like, "Ko Lanta -
Kolanta - Kohlanta - Koh Lanta" as long as you used these within your
copy. (You could also add a few other supporting words to that Title,
but you get the point.)
>Can you tell me if the search engines see ko lanta as kolanta in a
domain name. Would I be better off registering variations with kolanta
or ko-lanta in the domain name?<
Where the search engines are concerned, it is my opinion that the
domain name is not as important as one might think. Yes, there is
some evidence that a keyphrase in your domain name may give you that
extra boost if all else is equal between sites. However, generally
speaking, as long as you're doing all the techniques we espouse here
each week, your domain name will not make *much* difference to you in
the engines. Keyphrases in domain names have been known to give you a
little boost in some directories, but since you're not using a very
competitive phrase, it is not that important. Now if you had a whole
lot of competition out there for the kolanta keywords, that would be
another story, but I don't think your type of site needs to worry too
much about that. Thus said, you may have the opportunity to pick up
some extra traffic from people who are familiar with your island and
try typing it directly into their browser. For this reason, I would
suggest that you DO purchase both kolanta.com and kohlanta.com. I
would simply just park them both at the same IP address and not worry
about it. Use the one that is the proper spelling as the main URL to
promote and submit.
As an example, we have RankWrite.com but we also purchased
RankRight.com for those who don't realize that the Write is "write"
not "right." We only promote it as RankWrite.com, but we do sometimes
get visitors to the site through RankRight.com. To my knowledge, it's
not listed in the search engines with the latter spelling, nor would I
want it to be, but it's there for those who might hear someone mention
it, or if we tell it to someone on the phone and don't spell it out.
As to the dash in the domain, i.e., ko-lanta.com vs. kolanta.com,
again, I wouldn't worry about this very much. Although I do believe
that the search engines see dashes as a space, which could
theoretically be helpful, I also have a gut feeling that they can also
separate words in a domain name. I say this because I've seen our
RankWrite.com site rank high for the one word keyword "rank" in a few
engines and I think it might be partially attributed to the fact that
the word "rank" is in our domain name. Again, I haven't studied this;
it's just something I've noticed. If you're really concerned, you
could buy those dashed domains also, and again, point them all to the
same IP address. I would personally NOT make different content sites
at the various domains. I don't think it's necessary, and would just
end up being a huge waste of time for you.
>regarding meta keywords, using both ko + lanta plus a topic
description like 'travel', 'resorts, gives me three-word keywords, and
everybody tells me stick to two-word meta-keywords. <
Who's everyone and why are they telling you something like that?
(Don't you know by now never to listen to anybody besides me and
Heather? Hehehehe.) There's absolutely no reason to stick with
two-word phrases. Three-word phrases are fine and so are four- and
five-word phrases. Whatever works for your content is what you should
be using. If you think people are searching for "kolanta travel
resorts" then that should be a keyphrase for your site. By optimizing
a page for that phrase, you're also optimizing for the keyword
"kolanta" and the keyphrase "kolanta travel." This is a GOOD thing,
as it keeps your options open!
>Should I vary capitalization of my keywords in meta tags and
descriptions (I can't get away with this on the site unless I use all
caps in a headline).<
I wouldn't worry too much about capitalization these days. Over the
past year or so, most engines have gotten away from being case
sensitive (except when using some very advanced search techniques).
Therefore, it's not something that needs to be considered heavily.
Certainly, putting different variations in your Meta tags won't hurt
you, so go ahead and do it, but don't obsess over it. You might also
try different variations within your Alt tags too, if you're really
concerned and it works for your situation.
Hope this helps!
Jill
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