Here’s a quick PSA (Public Service Announcement):
Having a separate page for each variation of a keyword is EXTREMELY outdated and ineffective. Not only is this practice frowned upon by Google and other search engines, it is also misleading to your clients – and anything that is even a little misleading to users is definitely looked down on by search engines.
Every now and then I’ll find a site that has a page about car repair, car maintenance, and car tune-ups.
If you drive a car, you know that all of those phrases describe basically the same thing. Anything you say about car repair can also said on a car maintenance page. This technique was used commonly by web developers years ago. Today, however, this technique is one of many that was quickly abandoned within the industry.
If you’re worried that the search engines could miss one of the possible variations, keep in mind that the search algorithms used today are more than advanced enough to figure these things out. For example, if a user searches for “car repair” but your page is titled, “car maintenance,” your site is very likely to come up as well. If you do decide to have multiple pages for each keyword variation, you run the risk of taking a lower ranking for any keyword or phrase with leading search engines.
If your current site has a page structure similar to this, fixing it isn’t a complicated process. With a redo of page structure and some 301 redirects, you can have your site fixed and avoid this problem. WordPress has a number of plug-ins that can help with this, or you can contact your web developer and he or she should be able to get the issue squared away.
