Title tag questions
-
General title tag questions
-
how important is it not to change your title tag, I own a prom dress site and I'm always changing them between prom and homecoming'
-
Is it bad to have title tags that are only different by one word across thousands of pages on your site. I have thousands of dresses so each title tag only varies by the style #
-
I have always had title tags that are for example black prom dresses, well i recently discovered that just black dresses is googled 10 times the amount so im debating changing them to black dresses so that the word dresses is closer to the front of the title tag, am I over reacting or is that a good idea or would it be bad to put black dresses, black prom dresses, black homecoming dresses
-
I also put the year in almost every title tag 2012, is that bad, I ranked great for 2012 stuff but could it hurt my homepage domain rankings on major broader keywords
-
-
Agreeing with Egol that if you are ranking well than something must be done right. If I had hierarhical categories maybe I would try to always link back to the upper category with the proper anchor, like if you have dresses -> prom dresses -> black prom dresses link bacj from black prom dresses to prom dresses with this anchor so that google knows that these are really two pages that need to be seperate however only differing in one word.
I once had a site where similarity of title tags came into play. It offered pizza for 23 districts and I tried with pizza deliverry 13th distirct than pizza delivery 14th district. Now that was obviously too little difference for google as 3-4 districts were displayed in the first few places of the serps, 10 were still on first page but the others were far left behind.
Look at the rankings for the pages with nearly the same title like black prom dresses and white prom dresses and pink prom dresses. If none of them is left far behind than titles are considered to be different.
-
But i rank page one for every single product so i get great traffic from long tail, but what Im afraid of is that google is hurting my broader search terms b./c it looks at my overall site and doesnt see enough diversity in title tags even though none are identical, is that true or does google just analyse keyword by keyword and doesnt let other pages effect SERP.
It sounds like you are doing quite well. If you have a site about widgets google is going to expect a lot of title tags about different types, styles, colors and sizes of widgets. I think that the same thing holds true for dresses. I have lots of pages on my sites that are variants on a theme and they have title tags that are crafted similar to what you describe.
If it is working keep doing it.
I asked about doing black dresses, black prom dresses, black homecoming dresses as one title tag, im sure this is overkill for dresses but i need to get adjectives in but would black dresses for prom and homecoming give as much of a match with less keyword stuffing.
I might approach this at the "category" level. I would have category pages for prom and homecoming. Some dresses that might be worn to two different types of events might be listed on two category pages and receive a link from each of them with different anchor text. That will help that product page rank for two different category terms.
Think about more category pages. They can be powerful in the SERPs, present your products with different accessories and hit common product pages with various anchor text.
-
how important are the first 2 words in a title tag then, I can do what you said and make all my title tags different but I was afraid to b/c by doing a systematic approach I make sure my manufacturer and product # are the first 2 words and that is how people google it but by doing so it does not lead to diversity. But i rank page one for every single product so i get great traffic from long tail, but what Im afraid of is that google is hurting my broader search terms b./c it looks at my overall site and doesnt see enough diversity in title tags even though none are identical, is that true or does google just analyse keyword by keyword and doesnt let other pages effect SERP. Heres the main question I guess that goes along with that, if im trying to rank high for prom dresses does it look at how many of my pages title tags have prom dresses in it to determine my overall prom dresses ranking for my homepage domain.
One side question is earlier I asked about doing black dresses, black prom dresses, black homecoming dresses as one title tag, im sure this is overkill for dresses but i need to get adjectives in but would black dresses for prom and homecoming give as much of a match with less keyword stuffing.
-
1) how important is it not to change your title tag, I own a prom dress site and I'm always changing them between prom and homecoming'
I believe that you can change it occasionally (a couple times a year) without adverse results. However, I have experience with changing it frequently (every few days) and my pages seemed to be demoted.... but then original rankings came back when I stopped monkeying with it.
2) Is it bad to have title tags that are only different by one word across thousands of pages on your site. I have thousands of dresses so each title tag only varies by the style #
I honestly think that you should put a little more work into this. Do each of these thousands of dresses look identical? No... so use your imagination to be more explicit - it might bring you more traffic because you will have diverse title tags.
Get provocative with some of these, get reserved with others, shout a value proposition in others.
Do this and see if it increases the total traffic into your site
3) I have always had title tags that are for example black prom dresses, well i recently discovered that just black dresses is googled 10 times the amount
If you can rank for the exact match query "black dresses" then go for it. Otherwise include more restrictive adjectives that are relevant to the product. I believe in a diversity of text in title tags, and product descriptions. I think that it gives your entire site greater keyword reach.
4) I also put the year in almost every title tag 2012, is that bad, I ranked great for 2012 stuff but could it hurt my homepage domain rankings on major broader keywords
Go into your analytics to see if anybody is visiting your site as a result of placing the year in the title. If yes then you might have a good thing. If no, then use that space for something that might pull traffic.
Some final comments.... It is good that you are thinking about these things but I think that you can learn a lot and get firm answers to your questions by experimenting and carefully watching your analytics.
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
-
I seem to have about 10 ### tags in the sidebar. Should they be removed?
A plugin inserts H3 tags in sidebar 'read more' type links. They are tangentially related to the content (as the whole site is on ice hockey), but not directly related. Will Google think these are part of the content and be a little confused on the subject matter or is it smart enough to realize this is Sidebar material? Do I need to take action/be concerned? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | BrvceTHW0 -
Are there detrimental effects of having multiple robot tags
Hi All, I came across some pages on our site that have multiple robot tags, but they have the same directives. Two are identical while one is for Google only. I know there aren't any real benefits from having it set up this way, but are there any detrimental effects such as slowing down the bots crawling these pages? name="googlebot" content="index, follow, noodp"/> Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | STP_SEO0 -
Link in H1 tag?
Hi guys, We're working through a redesign of our product page and are considering the following: http://screencast.com/t/NBSsDGA9vgS3 Currently the product name (including the brand name - Arc'teryx) in this case is included in the H1 and none of the title is linked. You can see this here: http://www.evo.com/synthetic-jackets/arcteryx-atom-lt-hoodie-womens.aspx The firm we're working with is proposing keeping the entire title in the H1 but linking the brand name to the entire brand assortment. My concern is that the brand name is a critical part of the product title and should be text (not a link). Any suggestions? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | evoNick
Will0 -
[HELP!] File Name and ALT Tags
Hi, please answer my questions: 1. Is it okay to use the same keyword on both file name and alt tags when inserting an image? Example: File Name: buy-lego-online.jpg ALT tag: buy-lego-online Will it trigger Google Panda? Will I be penalized for that? Or the file name and alt tags should be different from each other? Because when inserting an image on Wordpress, the alt tags are always the same as the file name by default. 2. For example, I have 2 images in a page (same topic/niche) and I will put "cheap-lego-for-kids" and "best-lego-for-sale" as alt tags. Considering that I repeat the word "lego", is it considered keyword stuffing? Will I be penalized for that? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | bubblymaiko0 -
What should I title my homepage tab?
Our homepage tab just reads "home." Am I missing out on something with that? Should I re-write the tab to our brand name or a general descriptor? Best, Ruben
On-Page Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Title Tag and Company Name
Hello everyone! The company I work for has an e-commerce site that needs to be optimized. I am starting from the title tags which are too long and need optimized for specific keywords. Thing is that each title tag contains the specific keywords for the page and the company name. My question is should I keep the company name within the title tags or should I just keep the keywords I target for those pages? How will it affect my rank? Cheers Oscar
On-Page Optimization | | PremioOscar0 -
Advanced tags in images
Is it true that one can improve image seo by adding metadata to the details (right click image and choose details), like tags and comments. I never heard of doing this before. It seems like grasping at straws.
On-Page Optimization | | Webzenz0 -
Duplicate Page Title Elements
Hello Mozzers. My questions is below and I would like to thank everyone in advance for any feedback 😉 I own a dog supplies site (www.k9electronics.com). When I launched the site several years back I hired a guy for SEO and he optimized my home page for specific categories search terms such as "dog training collars", "dog shock collars:, ect instead of general search terms such as "dog supplies", "dog accessories", ect. I would like to start moving these home page title element terms (starting with "dog shock collars") over to the dog training collars category but have high rankings for this term on the home page. Current Home Page Title Element:
On-Page Optimization | | k9byron
dog training collars, dog shock collars, electric dog collar, dog supplies (recently added) Current Dog Training Collars Category Title Element:
dog training collars I was hoping to add "dog shock collars" to the dog training collars category page until I achieved higher ranking then delete if from the home page. ..or swap it out with "dog accessories". I am currently ranked #5 in Google for "dog shock collars" on the home page & dog training collars category page ...and I am a little concerned about changing these title elements. My question is; If I add 'dog shock collars" to the dog training collars category page title as well, how will it effect my ranking on both pages having this duplicate term in both page titles? Thank You,
Byron-0