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.
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
-
Thank you very much
-
Thank you very much
-
As The Chris Menke has stated, there's no problem with including the city and state in your meta data or on-page markup. It's actually an advantage of sorts.
There are nearly one dozen cities named Dallas in the US. Say you were located in Dallas, TX. What would separate you from Dallas, OR? There would be citations, if you're doing what you need to do for a local business. But I've found that on-page is getting a bit more weight, and it's increasing.
Not sure yet? You can verify a Google My Business listing via Google Webmaster Tools for an indeterminate amount of business categories. If that's not a sign that on-page is gaining weight in the local search scene - I don't know what is.
In fact, the Google Local team has stated that the business's domain is the strongest factor. Would you not like to possibly give them a few more signals, easily? They are the donkey, you have the carrot.
But I would suppose your question arises from an objection to writing; "Profession/Service City, State". There are ways you can do that, and it will still look alright. In fact, wouldn't you want someone to know that they came to the right place immediately, even though it sounds generic?
People don't have time. You have to show them they came to the right place immediately. Title and header markup are excellent ways to do so.
-
Brooke,
There's nothing wrong with including place names in your title, in fact, it is a best practice in many instances. Be strategic about doing so, though. Adding the name of your city to every blog post will seem spammy (but won't get you penalized) and probably isn't necessary. Typically, if your services are location specific, you should include your place name in the title, description, and body. It will usually help with organic ranking and click through on product/services pages when searchers are looking locally for your offerings.
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
-
H2 tags always recommended? Or ok without?
Is it ok to have no h2 tags? There are no "keywords" relevant to the product in these example h2 tags. Also, is it ok to not have a PRODUCT DESCRIPTION header, or is it better with that header? It's for a "product page". Examples: <h1>Used Bow Front Desk With Mahogany Laminate</h1> <h2 style="display:inline;">QTY:</h2> 3 - <h2 style="display:inline;">Manufacturer:</h2> Hon <h2>Product Description:</h2> <p>This bow front desk is in excellent condition. It has a beautiful mahogany laminate.</p> OR (no h2 tags or product description header at all) <h1>Used Bow Front Desk With Mahogany Laminate</h1> <p>QTY: 3 - Manufacturer: Hon</p> <p>This bow front desk is in excellent condition. It has a beautiful mahogany laminate.</p> I prefer the last one as it's much simpler, but I'm curious if search engines would prefer the existence of h2 tags in the first version. Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | NRSmart
Todd0 -
Logo Image H1 Tag SquareSpace
We have a site hosted on SquareSpace: Roomhance.com Going through the on-page optimizaton tool, we noticed that the H1 tags weren't fully optimized. If you click on view source on the page, it shows 2 H1 tags on the home page: id="logoImage"><a <span="" class="html-attribute-name">href</a><a <span="" class="html-attribute-name">="</a>/">src="//static1.squarespace.com/static/5bcca055ab1a62465f5b9ee7/t/5c18feb270a6adf771765799/1588613682225/?format=1500w" alt="Virtual Staging For Real Estate | Roomhance" /> style="text-align:center;white-space:pre-wrap;">Virtual Staging The 2nd one shown above it the H1 tag we want. I'm wondering if the H1 tag in the logo image is hurting us for SEO? Can't figure out how to modify it in SquareSpace.
On-Page Optimization | | vikasnwu0 -
SVG image files causing multiple title tags on page - SEO issue?
Does anyone have any experience with SVG image files and on-page SEO? A client is using them and it seems they use the title tag in the same way a regular image (JPG/PNG) would use an image ALT tag. I'm concerned that search engines will see the multiple title tags on the page and that this will cause SEO issues. Regular crawlers like Moz flag it as a second title tag, however it's outside the header and in a SVG wrap so the crawlers really should understand that this is a SVG title rather than a second page title. But is this the case? If anyone has experience with this, I'd love to hear about it.
On-Page Optimization | | mrdavidingram2 -
H1 Tags on Volusion Product Pages
So I'm working with a client who has no heading tags on his site and I'm wondering if there is an ideal method to implementing these on the product pages specifically, as the wording I ideally want to specify is is the product title, which i can't really code with an H1. Has anyone run into this issue? If so, what was your solution? Also, how vital are these heading tags on the product pages, anyways? If the Volusion SEO expert could chime in, that would be much appreciated. Thanks everyone!
On-Page Optimization | | BrandLabs0 -
Using phrases like 'NO 1' or 'Best' int he title tag
Hi All, Quick question - is it illegal, against any rule etc to use phrases such as 'The No 1 rest of the title tag | Brand Name' on a site?
On-Page Optimization | | Webrevolve0 -
Prices in title tag
At our ecommerce site adwords ads generally perform a lot better when the product price is included in the ad title. Does anyone here have any experience and data on CTR with including product prices in title tags of product / category pages?
On-Page Optimization | | ese0 -
Hyphens in Domain Name
I have a client who is a business broker. I have just begun working with them, and they are trying to determine the best domain name to use - they have several. business-broker-alabama.com vs businessbrokeralabama.com Which one of these has more value? I know that search engines have somewhat devalued keywords. The first one probably has a little more SEO value, but is going to be a drag in terms of marketing -- saying "business hyphen broker hyphen alabama" is going to get old for them. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | csmithal0 -
Does it matter what text you wrap in an H1 tag?
Typically H1 tags are reserved for page headings, i.e. on a blog post the blog post title is very often the pages H1, or top-level heading as the W3C puts it. On the SEOmoz home page they currently have "SEO Software." as their H1 tag, which seems perfectly reasonable and to me fits the W3C criteria. However, what if the primary keyword for SEOmoz was "seo community" so they decided to wrap just those two words in the sentence that follows on their home page and maintain the existing style of the words "seo community" with CSS. (see attachment) Are there any arguments against doing that? Would Google be able to detect this? If so, would Google care? I do believe the overall importance of the H1 tag has lessened to a degree, however I still believe they are valuable to an extent and would love to hear anyone's thoughts. 7NZcD.png
On-Page Optimization | | TakeLessons1