Title Tags in 2013
-
For blog posts do you think it is better to use something like "Atlanta Plumbing Company" or "Choosing an Atlanta Plumbing Company" (article title). I have been using the article titles but I think it might be hindering rankings a bit. I use to use the keyword but it seems a bit spammy now.
I want to create titles for the readers but rank well too.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
-
Jason,
Think of how many individual blog posts you're going to need to write in 2013, 2014, and beyond (one hundred, two hundred, more?) and how much social outreach you'll have to accomplish over that time in order to build the blog into a really effective marketing tool for your company. Then you gotta wonder how you can maintain interest and focus writing all those posts on the specific subject of "atlanta plumbing company" or "choosing an atlanta plumbing company". On top of that, gotta wonder how many of those social profiles you reach out to week after week after week who are going to want to share your content on the specific subject of "atlanta plumbing company" or "choosing an atlanta plumbing company". And then you gotta wonder about the readers and how their interest will be maintained while you're writing only on the specific subject of "atlanta plumbing company" or "choosing an atlanta plumbing company".
I'd say that you're on the right path in thinking that your titles seem a bit spammy, but you've gotta get off the path and get on the highway. On the highway, your blog can reach its greater potential--a vehicle that can reach and engage a community that is hungry for a wide variety of topics within your theme.
As someone here at SEOmoz is fond of saying, content needs to be exceptional, inspirational, unique, credible, fun, and beneficial to share in order to accomplish it's goal of being an effective marketing tool. I would start with that, when contemplating your titles, and then write your posts accordingly.
-
It's really important that users find what they are looking for in that the title should be as descriptive as possible otherwise they will just bounce off the page. That said, I would try to ensure that you word your titles well for SEO by keeping irrelevant stop words to a minimum and keep your primary target keywords or phrase early in the page title
-
Hey Jason, I am glad that someone really asked this question!
Well everybody wants people to read whatever they are writing on their blog and for that one of the ways is to rank the blog well in search engines from the searchable keywords like you have mentioned in your question.
Actually the keywords that you are trying to focus is one of the money making keywords within your niche and that is why it’s more competitive than other keywords that you are not focusing. I think the better idea is create natural titles that may or may not focus keywords all the time but focus on the content on the page...and give indication to Google and users about what the page is all about...
As far as targeting keywords is concern try to focus on long tail keywords with less competition so that you blog will easily rank and get some attention and if it will really worth reading you will see people share far and wide naturally through social networks, emails and all other possible mediums.
Hope this helps!
-
Have you glanced at SEOMoz's best practices for title tags? - http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/title-tag
In my opinion you should have the title as natural as possible and that should be the a clear label as to what your article is about. Have you looked at examples such as how SEOMoz has titles on their blog - article title | brand
In my experience you will also pick up more long tail traffic with more natural titles such as using the full title rather than just a specific keyword. It also looks less spammy and over-optimized which is something to take into consideration after recent Google updates.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Page Title Displaying differently on Google
Hi i am wondering why page title is display differently on google search. The combination of words that are being displayed on google are not on the page and the page title is simply "Camera Filters", however the page is showing as "our range of Camera Filters" (with the same capitalisation). http://awesomescreenshot.com/0cf4r09y27 I have optimised the age as best i can so it removes the OUR RANGE OF preface, however no luck. Any info would be appreciated. Cheers
Technical SEO | | andrewlos0 -
Can Title Tag be seen in the page source, but not seen by search engines?
This is a follow up question derived from a previous question I posted - http://moz.com/community/q/does-title-tag-location-in-a-page-s-source-code-matter There have been several reputable crawl tools used on our (including Moz) site that state we are missing title tags on may pages. One such page is http://www.paintball-online.com/Paintball-Guns-And-Markers-0Y.aspx I can see the title tag on line 238 of the page source. I find it unlikely that there is an issue with the crawl tools. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Nick
Technical SEO | | Istoresinc0 -
Changing the Title Tag But It Does Not Reflect In Google Results
I have changed the page title for www.finanscaddesi.com to read as "Finans Caddesi | Paranın Pusulası" (as you can see from the source code) But Google still shows the old version. I have checked Google's guidelines regarding page titles. They say if we find a reference anchor text that is linking to the page (such as a DMOZ entry) we may use the anchor text as page title. I wonder whether there is a method I can follow to change the title tag to appear as "Finans Caddesi | Paranın Pusulası" in Google search results. Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | merkal20130 -
Duplicate Title tags vs. View All for search results
I run a directory and some search queries give almost 1000 unique results. My moz campaign tells me that I have around 1,300 duplicate title tags etc. I read online about canonical, rel=next/prev, also about having a 'view all' page just for google (page links, not search queries), but if I do this, wouldn't the slowness mean google won't index it? So the question is what is the best thing to do?
Technical SEO | | tguide0 -
Magento CMS Page Meta Titles?
Hey All, I'm experiencing a bit of a problem with creating a custom, separate Meta Title for CMS pages in Magento 1.6.1.0. I know this can be added through _CMS => Page => Page Information => Page Title, _but this method presents issues, as a length of 70 characters is a little too long for breadcrumbs. I would like a way to add a second specific meta title field that overrides this first Page Title field_. _ I did find something that does this in Magento Connect for around $50.00USD, but this seems like something that should be easy and free to do. Any suggestions as to a workaround or alternative free plugin would be most welcome! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | G2W0 -
Google changing title tags to branded
Hi guys and gals, i noticed in the results today Google has been changing my title tags so that brand: is in the front of it all. This is not in the code but my title tag structure site-wide is keywords and then always | brand on the end. Why has this happened does anyone know? does it affect my first keyword in the title tag, i guess Google might do it as it recognises the brand and wants users to know it?
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Googleoff/on tags
Hi all, I'd like to restrict Google indexing a part of content on the page. Does tag really work for it as it described on https://developers.google.com/search-appliance/documentation/46/admin_crawl/Preparing#pagepart? Thanks, Jane
Technical SEO | | Jane_Barry0 -
Title Tag Wordpress
I need to know how can I personalize the title tag individually in my categories?
Technical SEO | | nafera20