Which keyword for title
-
I'm trying to figure out what to use for my title text. It's for a structural steel fabrication company. Adwords has the average monthly searches for "structural steel" and "steel fabrication" identical at 5,400. It has "structural steel fabrication" at 390 which I get that since its longer and a little more specific will have less searches. My question is if I make the title "structural steel fabrication" does google just see it as 1 big keyword or will it rank for "structural steel" and/or "steel fabrication"? What would any of you go with here? All 3 keyword strings make sense for the person seeing the title.
Thanks for any advice you can give,
Clay
-
Hi Clay,
Welcome to Moz! Have you checked out the Beginner's Guide to SEO as well as our other guides at http://moz.com/learn/seo? I totally understand if you've instead been enjoying the weather! I see you're in AG/SLO. I grew up in Santa Maria, and really am only now (after relocating to Seattle) appreciating the weather we had there in the winter.
-
Could you give a little more background about how the SEs would view that as just one keyword? I'm looking at a search for SEO in Google right now, and on the front page there are results including one with SEO Training in the title tag, yet it's showing up on the first page for SEO by itself.
For the construction example, the number of searches isn't necessarily the number of visits to a page. On my site, I show up fairly low for just "warship" but fairly high for "model warship combat". Way more people search for "warship", but I'm so far down in the results for that keyword that I get more visits from "model warship combat" even though there's far less search volume. Like you said, the longer-tail keywords are often the ones that do convert better.
-
Thanks for the response Alex. I'm really starting to get a grasp on this stuff. Appreciate it!
-
Thanks a lot Chris! That really helps me out. Being a developer who's boss told him to "figure out SEO" this stuff gets pretty confusing sometimes. I appreciate it.
-
As mentioned above just setting the title to the most popular keyword won't guarantee you rank for that keyword. You're better off creating a page that uses and supports both keywords, or target a good keyword for your brand. Follow up by creating sub pages or sub content that support the 2 keywords you've mentioned. The goal isn't to just use the keyword in a few places, it's to create a whole map of content that supports a single keyword.
-
Clay,
As far as the words used in the title, those that are closest together and closest to the beginning of title will be given more weight but there is no clear delineation of what's a keyword and what's not a keyword in the title. Rather, think of your title as a lens through which Google sees the rest of the words on your page.
When the copy on the page contains the same words in the same order as what's found in the title, such combinations will be seen by google as highly relevant to the same combination used in a search query. In your example, if your tile contains only "steel fabrication" and your page copy contains only "steel fabrication" then the page would be far more relevant to the "steel fabrication" search query than it would be to the "structural steel fabrication" search query.
If your title used "steel fabrication" towards the beginning and "structural" towards the end and you sprinkled the terms "structural" and "steel fabrication" throughout your page copy, the page would still be highly relevant to the search query "steel fabrication", while increasing in relevance to the "structural steel fabrication" query.
If your title began with "structural steel fabrication" and you used that combination of words throughout your copy, the page would probably become more relevant to that query than to "steel fabrication" but could possibly still rank for both.
That said, there is a fundamental difference between the concepts of "structural steel fabrication" and "structural steel " (and "steel fabrication" for that matter) and Google is recognizing that the way each is used in context gives big clues to the page concepts. Thus, more and more, Goolge knows that just because the words "steel fabrication" are used next to each other on a page, if structural is used in front of them, then the page may be considered irrelevant to "structural steel fabrication".
So, if your page is about "structural steel", use your copy to clearly this product or service. If the page is about "steel fabrication" use the page copy to clearly describe that service to your visitors. If the page is about "structural steel fabrication", be clear about that. Doing so will pay off more and more, as Google continues to get better at providing search results and as visitor expectations of landing pages get higher.
-
Search engines will see "Structural Steel Fabricator" as one keyword, not as all combinations of words therein.
When it comes to short vs long-tail keywords, the main question is about whether or not the loss of searches is made up for by specificity in regard to longer keywords. For example: let's say your business is home construction. In 1 day, 1,000 people search "construction" on Google, whereas 200 people search "home construction". While "construction" gets 5x the visits to your site, it's assumed that those who visit from searching "home construction" will be more likely interested in your service because they were more specific and therefore, your service is more tailored to their search.
Odds are that less people will generally search "home construction", but there's also less competition and the leads are more likely to become customers. So, I suggest comparing your conversion rates, the amount of visitors for both, and the competition for each keyword.
-
Hi Clay. Google will be able to parse your page meaning not only from the Title Text but also the semantic linking to and from your page, so "structural steel fabrication" should be a fine choice. Something that could help you test the efficacy of your title tags though would be to start up a small paid campaign (AdWords) around the company brand and then split test the various titles you come up with amongst people searching specifically for the company brand. Then you'll have data on which title tends to beat out the other from a CTR stand point.
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
-
Point of diminishing returns for keyword research?
Hey, something I've been thinking about lately is "where is the point of diminishing returns for keyword research detail?" I get that keyword research is important for finding out stuff like "people generally search for 'doctor' way more often than they search for 'licensed medical professional'", but what about after that? Is there much useful information to be found by sifting through spreadsheets of stats about "doctor" vs "dr" vs "doctors" vs "physician" vs "physicians" etc? Especially when Google seems to treat a lot of those as interchangable? Or another example: If a remodeling company did basements, do you think there's much to be gleaned from AdWords data comparing "basement remodeler", "basement remodelers", basement remodeling", "basement remodeling contractor", "basement remodeling contractors", "basement renovation", "basement renovations", "basement renovators", "finished basements", "basement finishers", "basement finishing", etc.? Should those variations be analyzed and each targeted by their own sets of pages and pieces of content (e.g. a blog post that specifically targets "basement remodeler" and a blog post that targets "basement finisher" and a third blog post that specifically targets "renovated basement") Or should the takeaway be "there aren't any combinations that people overwhelmingly prefer to use, so let's just make content about basements and topics relevant to basements. Keyword research complete."
Keyword Research | | BrianAlpert782 -
Targeted keywords for landing pages but keyword has a lot of synonyms, how is the best way to approach this?
I'm trying to target one page for one broad 2 word keyword, however, because our niche revolves around this keyword and it's synonyms, the keyword is used on every other page, thus creating the issue of non-targeted pages taking the rank instead of targeted page. I've thought of using synonyms on each page, so that no one page uses the same keyword, but felt this could be seen as spammy or could just hurt overall relevancy towards the main keyword, thus a loss of rank. I understand page authority also plays a part, but also seems that every page other than the page I want get's targeted.
Keyword Research | | Deacyde0 -
How can I get a list of keywords related to my specific keyword?
With a keyword such as 'vacant land,' how can I find related keywords?
Keyword Research | | Jeraldine0 -
Question about keyword analysis
I am working on a keyword analysis for a range of keywords. I want to target these keywords in the Denver market. I know if you search google for something like "IT Support" and you are located in Denver it knows where you are and caters the results to be more Denver IT Support oriented. I did notice that those results are different than if you search for "Denver IT Support" My pages are optimized for the Denver market and the keyword like "IT Support" but I am a bit confused on how I should be doing my research into keywords. Should I be putting Denver into all my keyword analysis research even though I still want to rank for just the keyword when they are searching from the Denver area. I hope this all makes sense. I guess I just need some guidance on how to deal with the location specifics of my keywords. Thanks in advance for any help.
Keyword Research | | ZiaTG0 -
Different pages with same keyword phrase.
I have my home page and an interior page targeting the same keyword phrase. Is this ok or would they be competing with each other?
Keyword Research | | WillWatrous0 -
Is using "-" in the title of a page to seperate targeted keywords bad for seo purposes?
For example "Dog-Leashes" Is that bad if I'm targeting dog leashes as my keywords.
Keyword Research | | ibex0 -
Is it important to have exact keyword in your URL
I have researched exact keywords and noted a four word phrase which has fairly good numbers for exact keyword local searches a month with low competition. If I was to make it as my web address it would mean having www. (18 letters).co.uk Is it important to have the exact keyword in the URL for ranking purposes? Is an 18 letter web address either side of the www and .co.uk too long?
Keyword Research | | TCWorkouts0 -
How do you order similar keywords when writing content?
Let's say I sell widgets: plastic widgets, paper widgets, brass widgets and steel widgets. These are in order by how popular they are but none is so popular to really stand on it's own. When writing general content about widgets, lets say for the main Widgets page, would you write: 1. "We sell plastic, paper, brass and steel widgets." -or- 2. "We sell plastic widgets, paper widgets, brass widgets and steel widgets." I understand I can have specific pages for Plastic Widgets, Paper Widgets, etc., but like I said this would be for a main category page, maybe even for a quick "this is what we do" opening paragraph on the homepage. Is it better to be concise like in example 1? Or to individually call out each type like in example 2? I'm looking for SEO insight and the customer experience viewpoint as well.
Keyword Research | | rball10