The difference between the singular and plural version of the same keyword phrase oftentimes represents a very specific consumer point of view. When digging into your website keyword data, it's very easy to arbitrarily group phrases together, but doing so will most likely lead you to the wrong conclusions, which translates to the wrong SEO advice, which leads to the wrong marketing advice, and eventually the wrong business direction.
You have plenty of opportunity to capture data from your website to help you develop a forward plan. Even a small retail jeweler can gather enough business intelligence over time to help with important decisions. Analyzing the data is a completely different story.
Today, I'm digging into my collected dataset from the 2015 holiday season to surface the differences between the word "jeweler" and "jewelers."
Overall Data Sample
My dataset comes from website traffic of several different retail jewelry stores throughout North America. Within that dataset, the word "jeweler" appeared in 3.76% of all phrases and the word "jewelers" appeared in 5.40%. Those are the data samples I'm using for this analysis.
The next few sections of this Daily Golden Nugget contain keyword phrases that you should find of some interest.
Best Phrases
Several times in the past, I have explained the importance of the word "best" and how it's often used in search queries. Consumers like to use that word in their search query in hopes that Google will return a list of jewelry store in order of their highest to lowest quality. I admit, it's a strange way to give Google control over your what you search for, and how will Google know if you are looking for the best reviews, the best price, or the best... whatever. I've tried these searches a few times myself, but always with unsatisfying results. A little bit of keyword manipulation on your website is all that's needed to game these results.
Nevertheless, people still search for these common phrases in this order of popularity:
- best jewelers in {town name}
- best jewelers {town name}
- best jewelers custom
- best custom jewelers {town name}
- best jewelers in {state name}
- best jewelers near me
- best jewelers
While the word "best" appeared in these 7 "jewelers" related phrases, it only appeared in 1 "jeweler" related phrase, that being "best jeweler in {town name}."
I would never recommend that you fluff your website with the word best littered randomly on a few pages. Considering that you would have to use the word in the exact keyword order you see in each of the above phrases, it's more appropriate to add a few legitimate testimonials to your website.
Tell your customers you need a few testimonials for your website and ask them to write them. They don't have to be hand written either, email is fine. That should cover what's needed for this phrase set.
Come to think of it, if you've ever won a "best" award of some type, now is the time to add those details to your website. Off the top of my head, I can think of several jewelers who have won "best" awards for their town, valley, newspaper, and chambers of commerce. A few of you out there also hold great awards from Instore Magazine that could be touted to cover this keyword need.
Near Me Phrases
I noticed several more location based search phrases this year than I have in the past. This might simply be because, in general, we are all getting better at using the improved technology we have access to.
The most common related query I found was "jewelers near me." The second most common phrase was "jeweler near me." In this particular case, I'd argue that someone looking for all the jewelers near their location is willing to take time to evaluate each one, but the person searching for any single jeweler closest to them has a more immediate, and perhaps even less discerning, need.
The other phrases I classify among the less discerning group were:
- custom jeweler near me
- nearest jeweler
- jeweler nearby
- jeweler near here
The rest of the location based phrases included combinations of the word "local," "near me," "nearby,' "nearest," and "location."
The keywords "near me" and "nearby" were often included in other searches like "watch jewelers," "custom jewelers," and "gold jewelers."
I caution you with how you use the word "near" on your website. Perhaps, the best use is to have a location or a directions page where you explain that you are nearby to a landmark, or near some other well known store. Any more than that, and it might seem obvious that you're trying to unnaturally stuff the word "near" into your website copy.
People using nearby related search queries are hoping that the search engine will correctly identify their location and surface the closest geographically located store. The results returned will only be as accurate as the location based services on your computer or mobile device. Google's ability to match a device location to your store location all depends on if you've taken the time to confirm and conform all the online directory listings that have your store name, address, and phone number. You can find out more about this procedure here, here, and here.
Town Names
Speaking of location specific, the local town name appeared in 34.9% of all queries containing the word "jewelers" and 3.7% of all the queries with the word "jeweler."
The most common query format was "{town name} jewelers." The next most common phrase was a store name in association with a town name, as in "Perosi Jewelers Totowa Borough" and also "Totowa Borough Perosi Jewelers." Those of you with unique jewelry store names probably never realized the importance of searching for a specific store name in addition to a location, but it happens a lot with independent jewelers and even more so with chain stores.
The next set of popular query combinations include:
- jewelers {town name}
- jewelers in {town name}
- {town name} jewelers
- jeweler {town name}
- {town name} jeweler
I'd like to point out that, although the phrasing "jeweler in {town name}" did appear in my data, it was far less popular than the plural version of the word.
One thing to remember about keywords is that Google does match exact keyword phrases people search for to the copy on your website, but you can't overstuff your website with those phrases; otherwise, you'll get zapped. I've seen plenty of jewelry websites that had headlines like "Totowa Borough Jewelry Stores" on several pages and "Jewelers in Totowa Borough" on other pages. That's the wrong way to do it.
A better approach is to include the phrases in natural sentences on your about us page or directions page. Here are some ideas:
Perosi Jewelers is one of the jewelers in Totowa Borough.
Perosi Jewelers strives to be the best Totowa Borough jeweler.
Perosi Jewelers is the only Totowa Borough jeweler carrying Pandora.
No other Totowa Borough jewelers carrying Pandora jewelry.
Custom
By far the most popular query with the keyword "custom" is "custom design jewelers." That phrase should be on your website somewhere if you provide custom design work.
The next more popular phrase variation is "custom jeweler {town name}." The plural version "custom jewelers {town name}" was not nearly as popular, but still used. On the other hand, the plural word jumps in popularity when the town name was first, as in "{town name} jewelers custom" and "{town name} custom jewelers." Pay attention to the order and use of the jeweler(s) phrasing when you make your ads.
The last phrase in this section is "custom jeweler," which was far more popular than the two word phrase "custom jewelers." I also found a few occurrences for "custom jeweler near me." The plural variation, "custom jewelers" was more popular when used with the town name that I already mentioned above.
Jewelers Reserve
Enough searches for "jewelers reserve" came up in my analysis that I had to look it up here. I was unaware of this financing service but that website says it's already endorsed by BIG, LJG, SJO, and MAJA.
I find it interesting that consumer awareness is already high enough that this appeared in my dataset, yet no mention of the old GE Financing or Synchrony Financial. If you're a retail jewelry store owner, you should look into this program.
Other Random Words
Everything I've mentioned so far is where you should focus your keyword and content building, but I do have a few extra words to throw into the mix that were popular.
The {state name} or abbreviation appeared in many search queries for both "jeweler" and "jewelers." Naturally, you should have your address in the footer of all your pages, and that certainly would take care of the state based searches, but you should also include it in the body copy of your about us and directions pages. Just don't overdo it.
I was also very surprised to see the queries for "{store name} hours," "jewelers hours," and "jeweler hours" appearing in my data. Obviously many users have figured out that they can ask Google for store hours for specific stores, which is a good reason to keep your Google My Business account up to date. However, I was surprised to see more than a handful of searches for "jeweler(s) hours." Is that a thing, like "bank hours"?
Speaking of "jewelers hours," one of the things that bothers me about the average retail jewelry store is that they cater mostly to the retired and unemployed. Most jewelers are open late only 1 day per week, and they are closed on Sunday. As a retail business it makes sense to cater to your employed customers as well. I suggest that you try a little experiment for a few months and switch around your store hours from 10am-5pm to 12pm-7pm. What's the worst that could happen? Perhaps you'll even get rid of a few of those customers that come in looking for a replacement lobster clasp for their 20 year old necklace.
Conclusions
There are certainly a few good nuggets in this information today. Now it's up to you to figure out how to apply them in your website copy, in your online marketing, and in your offline marketing. One hint I can give you is to use the appropriate phrasing to help people remember your ads; then use the same phrasing on your website in hopes that Google will connect the keyword dots later when customer search for the keywords they remembered from your ad.
