Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Page Title in Local SEO Title Tags?
-
Hi All,
Still working on my title tag usage for local SEO, and I was hoping for some more feedback.
My question is this:
In Local SEO titles, I'm using location + keyword combinations, unique on each page. However, since each page has a specific title for the client, I figure I should be placing that at the front. My thought here was that this helps with the overall usability to the reader of the website.
Ex. Contact Us page for Pizza shop
Contact Us | Springfield IN Gourmet Pizza | Moe's Italian Pizza
Anyone have thoughts on this one?
Thank you!
-
Hi Tyler,
That's great that you're aware of Linda's forum (I'm a mod there, too:))! I recommend writing your title tags in a more natural manner than the example you've given above. I'd go with something more like that:
Contact Moe's Italian Pizza In Springfield, IN At (XXX) XXX-XXXX
If you've found that 'gourmet' is a vital keyword for the page, you could work that in instead of the phone number, but I always try to put the phone number in the title tag of the contact page. See how my example reads naturally? Like a human would speak? In my opinion, this is the optimum way to go. Rand agrees with this method, too. I recommend you watch his WhiteBoard Friday from earlier in the year in which he talks about naturalness in title tags:
Also, be careful about repeating keywords, as covered in Linda's thread which SEO5 has smartly linked to.
Hope this helps!
-
You're most welcome. all the best
-
Perfect! Thank you so much for your input. Trying my best to ensure that I'm learning inline with best practices
Help much appreciated!
-
the title of the page is ok to include as it does benefit the visitor when they are looking through the search results in Google. However you can shorten it. (Contact, instead of Contact Us, About Instead of About Us)
-
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I've actually read a bit of Linda's posting so I really should have checked there also! Still trying to get a hang of all of this, and wading through conflicting information can sometimes make things difficult.
So you are thinking I shouldn't include the title of the page itself within the title tag?
-
Hi Tyler,
My thoughts would be to go with the keyword+location. Also the keyword or location should not be mentioned more than 2 times in the title tag.
Some other links below addressing the same topic:
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
-
Q&A Page Titles
Hello All! I am currently updating page titles and metadata descriptions for a websites Q&A section and have run in to a problem while updating page titles. Since it is the Q&A section of the website, all of the page titles are around 100 characters and some are up to 200 characters long. Here is an example: Page Title: My child is working below grade level in math. Do I have to purchase the curriculum from the grade below as well? The problem is that this is obviously too long for a SERP to display however I know it is best practice to have matching titles on both the title tag and page title. My question is what hurts SEO value more: the title tag and title of the page not matching or having a very long title displayed on the SERP?
On-Page Optimization | | Myles921 -
Page Title (Meta descriptions) length... how strict are you?
I have just had a conversation with a client... the gist was this... Is it more important to stay under the 55-60 characters OR go over a bit and have the page title make sense and include the clients company name. The same argument for meta description. I have a client insisting on 55-60 length but the keywords are long and if we use the primary keyword phrase the length is 44 if we use the keyword phrase and add the company name it becomes 64. This is with us trimming it a bit. Anyone else discussed this before?
On-Page Optimization | | JohnW-UK1 -
Is it OK to include name of your town to the title tag or H1 tag on a blog to enhance local search results
I recently attended a webinar by ETNA Interactive on local search SEO. The presenter recommended including the name of your town in the title of the blog to increase local search SEO. Is this OK? Ive always been concerned that it is such an obvious attempt to rank locally that Google would consider it "spammy" ? black hat, "sketchy" or otherwise manipulative. Have the rules changed? Is it OK to do? Brooke
On-Page Optimization | | wianno1680 -
Should we add our company's name in page title tag or not?
We have been adding our company (Townscript) name in all the page titles. For example, in an event page of Lucknow Conclave: www.townscript.com/lucknowconclave the page title is Lucknow Conclave | Alexis Society | Townscript I read somewhere that it's not necessary to put your company's name in the title tag. Is it right? Please help!
On-Page Optimization | | sanchitmalik0 -
How to separate your - keywords - and | Brand name in the Title Tag
I have traditionally used hyphens (-) and vertical bars (|) to separate out keywords/brands in title tags. A client has asked if other characters will work such as tilde (~), apersat (@), forward slash (/) etc. Are there any special characters we should steer clear of?
On-Page Optimization | | Switch_Digital0 -
Hey guys! I was looking at adding the H1 tag lower on the page than the H2 tag because I want the top bit to be a call to action. Is this proper practice?
Hey guys! I was looking at adding the H1 tag lower on the page than the H2 tag because I want the top bit to be a call to action. Is this proper practice?
On-Page Optimization | | Web3Marketing870 -
Can I place H1 tag anywhere on page
Hello, For those of you who use Magento you will know it is not SEO friendly. When you create a category or product, the name of the product or category then becomes the H1 tag. We sell mens business shirts. For example we have a product called 'White poplin classic fit' this is also the H1 tag, nobody is ever going to search for that term so I have had my developer create a new attribute that allows me to keep the product name as it is and let's me create a new SEO friendly H1 tag, for example 'White business shirt' However, placing 'White business shirt' on the page to be visible by the visitor does not look good on the page. My question is. Can I place the H1 tag anywhere on the page? I have some tabs like below. I am thinking of add a tab in between delivery and returns called more info and placing more seo keywords including the H1 tag in this tab. Will this be OK or will this be seen as black hat technique?
On-Page Optimization | | mullsey0 -
Should I include location in title tag to rank higher in local search
I'm working on a site for a small guest house (http://www.tommysonthebeach.com). I have created a Google Place page (Bing and Yahoo Local) as well and I have the address in the footer on every page. I have the location (Indian Rocks Beach) at the beginning of most titles tags because that is how people tend to search, e.g. "Indian Rocks Beach vacation rental." In theory I would think that I don't need location in the title tag because Google knows the location, and I could use the real estate for other keywords suchs as "pet friendly" or "beach hotel," etc. But when I look at the SERPS, those ranking highly all seem to have the location at the beginning of the title tag. Thanks. P.S. The site is currently not showing up in Google local search apparently because Google thinks it's a vacation rental agency, which are not allowed in local search. I'm trying to get that fixed.
On-Page Optimization | | bvalentine0