Does an apostrophe in a keyword actually make a difference? [ Edited ]

[#1]

Hi

I am a newbie SEO'er jacking up my knee help website that I started last week. My question pertains to the keyword planner results - search volume. My main keyword is "runner's knee" - however, the keyword planner says that there is no data for runner's knee, but only for runners knee (without the apostrophe). However, the correct spelling for runner's knee is with the apostrophe. Obviously if you a straight search on google, there are results for runner's knee and runners knee - different results. How does the apostrophe affect my campaign or not affect it? I do not know if you should leave my keyword in as runner's knee or runners knee.

I checked on SEO toolset and their result is exactly the opposite. High Search volume for runner's knee and very little for runners knee (without the apostrophe). Who do we believe??

CONFUSED WITH A CAPITAL C!!! Pls help!

Thank you!!!

[#2]

Hello Julia R ! Welcome to the Community,

According to a previous message that I found using the search engine of the forum, the apostrophe can be used, it is indicated in the Help Center pages also. Please read more from here : link

There is also this article from Brad Geddes ( an AdWords Trainer) , who explains in the uploaded print-screen that the apostrophe is a punctuation that can be read by AdWords : link

My personal opinion : you can use apostrophe, but others can join to provide different opinions.

[#3]

Hi Adrian
Thank you so much for the reply. Have read the two articles ... so it seems Google does differentiate between the two words, with and without the apostrophe. Then why on the google keyword planner is there no data for the word with the apostrophe? Is that a mistake on their side? I suppose to be on the safe side I should have both versions but what about my page content - which one do I have in my content. using both would look unprofessional and I would come across as someone who cannot spell runner's knee lol.
Once again, many thanks for answering!

[#4]

1) "Then why on the google keyword planner is there no data for the word with the apostrophe? "

The keyword planner is a relatively new tool. I have also found some things not exactly perfect about it, but it is usable.  I also tested what you said and apparently only "runners knee" has a history of searches not "runner's knee"

If I were you, I would use both keywords "runners knee" (as the keyword planner indicates) and "runner's knee" , because I see nothing to lose, either one can match a searcher's intent and after a test you can tell for sure which one is useful.

2) " but what about my page content - which one do I have in my content. " , I would advise to use the correct english word in your content, as in "runner's knee" . If you use something else , you risk to confuse readers, I don't see it as a good customer experience.

[#5 · Accepted solution]

Hello Julia;

This is a nice question about a nice topic; And to which I have never been able to get a complete answer; (BTW: I suffered myself  a severe runner's knee, during the years I used to run long distances...) 

The system does recognize apostrophe.

However; to my understanding, if you use broad match or include "closed variants"  in exact match or phrase match that  should be included  even if you use the "non  diacritic" version.

For your specific examples, I would use both versions because they are used interchangeably among athletes. (e.g runnres knee; runner's knee; runner's knee syndrome; runners knee syndromes ; runner's knee injury...)

I would also recommend to run a search terms report to analyze which variants are mostly clicked;

-Moshe

[#6]

Thank you for the reply. It really is so helpful to have a community to
ask. Just one more question: I was told that unless the keywords in my tags
(especially for the site and pages) were not in my page content, it would
be pretty useless to use the keyword. Is this true? Just wondering if
including runners knee in my tag will actually link up to searches made, if
that particular spelling is not in the page content itself. Or would it be
fine to have both spellings in my tags?

[#7]

Hello again;

Do not confuse SEO and AdWords; 

AdWords tries to find the best match between a  search term (the user's query) and a keyword. Once this match is established, the keywords enters into  an auction process, which  ends up with your ad ranked (or not)

Tags are for SEO, (helping the bots identify the site's topics)  

It is correct that one of the factors of your QS is the landing page  content. However, your QS is almost and for most determined by CTR. (The higher the CTR the higher the QS).

Thus, write your landing page (and site's)  content to a  human eye  (not to bots) . This means, using proper grammar. You will never be able to figure the bots' algorithms. They don't just look for "keywords in the text" - bots  are much smarted than that....

-Moshe

[#8]

I want to add a piece of the puzzle related to "message 6" from Julia , with no intention of making things complicated. I accept any constructive criticism if by doing this I upset someone.

What I want to share from my experience is that I have adapted my tags better with keywords after activating the new Paid and Organic AdWords report described here : link

I have added in the tags some of the most frequent organic search terms that I found related to what I sell and I have also created an Ad Group to bid on organic search terms as well as for keywords found with the planner.

I see it as a double advantage , if I am organically on position 3 and I receive some clicks from there, it is better to also use AdWords to bid for the same search term to increase profitable traffic.

I would keep both spellings in the tags ( not the content) and measure after some time (months) if the organic traffic increases for both spellings right in the interface of AdWords.

[#9]

I have a question, no answers other than what has already been posted here.

What tags are you all talking about?

Pete

[#10]

I always test search terms with and without a diacritic when using exact match. I often find that one grossly outperforms the other, then adjust my bids accordingly, or leave the less popular term to be caught in my phrase match AdGroup.