Should stop words be used in titles? I'm aiming for natural title structure.
-
I have fully optimized on-page SEO for the following keyword (not really the one I use, but it can serve as an example):
-personal driver in los angeles
Even though "in" is a stop word, I prefer to have a natural (non-robotic) structure for the title - I do this by including "in". I believe that "personal driver los angeles" is too spammy and too robotic.
Is this a good or a bad thing?
-
I just gave a suggestion you have to do your keyword research to see what keyword makes sense to go with, aka the one that gives most focused traffic that you are after.
As for body text vs title, the general consensus is to keep the keyword same in the title as in the body text, alt tags, meta description etc.
Hope this helps!
-
Great question that all of us have probably asked at some point, but as Vadim pointed out whenever there's a question in regards to content always ask yourself are you doing this for the spiders or human. If you go with the spiders you might have a short term win, but in the long term you should always think about the human when creating content. These rules/thoughts should always be asked if you have any SEO hesitations.
-
But wouldn't "los angeles personal driver" also trigger broad search term "personal driver in los angeles" and show up on the top - in case the page has a very good SEO.
What if I use "personal driver in los angeles" in body text to keep the natural flow and use "personal driver los angeles" for the title?
-
In this example follow your natural human instinct, not your robot/SEO instinct.
Human instinct: personal driver in los angeles
Robot/SEO/keyword mindset, personal driver los angeles.
However another way of doing this is "los angeles personal driver" doesn't need stop-word and sounds natural. Also sometimes los angeles personal driver might be searched more often than personal driver los angeles see an image I attached as an example
But again in all of this try to write content for the person and not the search engines, so keep that human instinct on when you do this. Hope this helps
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
-
Website Titles in Google
I currently have a Wordpress platform website and previously I noticed that when I optimized my pages, if I indicated what I wanted my page names to be (through an application like SEO Yoast) that most times, the keyword would show up exactly how I had it typed in. Recently I have noticed that the title of my website is showing in my page titles too. So for example: Before: Shoe Stores Windsor - XYZ Company Now: XYZ Company | Shoe Stores Windsor - XYZ Company In SEO practices, I know it's most often best to have the keyword you would like as close to the front of your title tag, but now this recent search adds my website title first. Plus this also seems to be making my titles longer. I know Google ultimately has the 'final say' in a page title and I have ensured that I have the "rewrite titles/descriptions option" check in Wordpress to allow me to overwrite titles, but I am hoping someone can possibly provide me with a tip or trick to avoid this in search rankings. I think it's important to have the name of my site entered through Wordpress so that any pages that I have no optimized default to the page name and site name, but the ones I have optimized seem to be showing differently all of a sudden. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | MainstreamMktg0 -
Stong Tags still useful in 2016
Hello, Are strong tags still beneficial in 2016? A few co-workers feel they look spammy on our site and that they are no longer really used by the search engines. However, we can't find any real significant info for no longer implementing them or saying they're outdated. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | STP_SEO0 -
Timeline on Moz's About Page
There has been a lot of talk about improving “About” pages on websites as of late. Moz actually has a really interesting About page, which includes a timeline. Are there any recommended WordPress plugins that can achieve a similar timeline effect?
On-Page Optimization | | VicMarcusNWI0 -
Advantage of using LocalBusiness rich snippets?
I am working on a website that has company profile pages. What are the advantages of using LocalBusiness rich snippets for profiles?
On-Page Optimization | | calf0 -
Meta Title in Google does not match the HTML meta title I have coded in a site
I have a client site that is pulling a meta title that is not in his code. I am using Yoast for the titles and descriptions on this site. Not 100% sure why Google is not listing the title we have in place. Could the code be pulling from somewhere else? Is there a fix for this?
On-Page Optimization | | Bryan_Loconto0 -
Using example.info when example.com is a link farm. Ok? Bad? Doesn't matter?
Second question of the day- I'm helping a friend with his law firm site. He is using example.info because example.com is being used by a link farm. Is this hurting his search efforts? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | ahossom0 -
URLs and folder structure for an E-commerce
Hi there !-) I´m helping a friend who has a e-commerce about nail polish in Brazil. I´m a little in doubt about the urls and folder structure. Two questions: 1. There are 10 products per category and 50 categories. Should I put them all in the root folder or creat 2 major categories ( 25 sub-categories each one)? 2. Whats the better product page url ( the store has around 500) nailpolish.com/IMPORT/BRAND/NAME-OF-THE-PRODUCT OR nailpolish.com/COMPLETE-NAME-OF-THE-PRODUCT Whats the best recomandation?
On-Page Optimization | | SeoMartin10 -
Seasonal site structure
Bit of a complicated one for anyone who likes a challenge.. We sell a range of products which are very seasonal, so therefore have a seasonal section within the store with the products categorized into their relevant categories. In additon to this i wanted to also create a feature of each season so in effect pull forward on to a new tab the relevant season ie: Valentine so that customers didn't have to hunt for the products by going via seasonal shop etc The problem is that my site urls display last-category/product-title so in effect as the seasons change these urls will be deleted. They do remain elsewhere in our catalogue.. Does this make sense?
On-Page Optimization | | LadyApollo0