Would you develop the singular or the plural?

[andydw]

Have a keyword phrase which I can reg. The singular gets better results in Google keyword tool - 1300 exact per month vs 130 for the plural.

But broad match is the reverse with 1900 for the singular vs 2400 for the plural.

My thinking is if I rank for the plural I will automatically rank for the singular thus covering both.

Plus the plural just sounds better as a domain name - eg: londonmortgages.com rather than londonmortgage.com

I am going to develop this as a full lead generating site (nothing to do with mortgages by BTW) so can reg both anyways but need to choose which one becomes a website.

Thoughts?

 

[Rob_F]

Plural.

- Rob

 

[accelerator]

Depends.

Are you only going to promote via SEO?

Are the exact match phrases ones that will convert?

Rgds

 

[andydw]

Only promoting through SEO - organic results.
Will be selling leads that are generated through the site or sticking adsense on it depending on how well leads convert and how good the company is who I will be sending them to.

How successful it is will decide what I do with it later.
CPC is about $3.50 for the singular and $7.00 for the plural

 

[fish]

Good OP question. I have several plural domains both for product and service sites that rank v. well for the plural but don't for the singular (despite optimising for it). Why is this? I'm guessing this works in reverse as well ...

 

[bensd]

Whichever you decided, definitely reg them both.

 

[accelerator]

If you are promoting only via SEO, AND not doing any longtail SEO, then I would go for the singular and it's 1300 monthly exacts. If you are going to do longtail SEO then it doesn't matter so much.

I would reg both the domains anyway.

Rgds

 

[wb]

Plural.

In addition to wanting to rank for the singular, the chances are you will be wanting to rank for multiple phrases anyway meaning the actual choice of domain from an 'exact match' point of view will not be relevant. Yes, it will be easier to rank for the singular initially but think long term and go for the one that sounds best.

 

[andydw]

I will be going for some long tail searches as well and trying to encompass numerous keywords.

I read an SEO report recently (GSpot conspiracy) which was on this subject and it basically said stop looking at exacts and build your site around broad terms - Google has already decided which terms are related, plurals, synonyms etc so go for broad and you will maximise traffic and automatically optimise your site for long tail results.

Have to say it made sense when I read it and sounds like sites built on this philosophy may be off to a slower start but will "last the distance" and eventually be a lot bigger than sniper sites.

SO in this instance the singular is the far more impressive so far as exact matches but the plural sounds much better and is more appropriate if I am building a site which I would like to eventually flesh out to rank for a load of related terms.

Anyone disagree with this? If so, why?

 

[Nyams Josh]

For your case plural is a better choice as it gets more traffic compared to singular. For me I will have singular then register plural which I will forward to the singular name (domain name). I will do this in order to avoid losing traffic if only I have singular registered name.