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.
Thoughts on adding "near me" to title tag for local SEO?
-
I want to lean out my title tags and will most likely be doing an A/B test. They currently have the "Near Me" modifier in there, which I believe Google can distinguish local SEO without it.
Thoughts?
-
@NickW816 I strongly agree with you. If you add "Near me " to the title google may randomly show the results based on your title and users search history, no matter he location.. If you really want to rank for a particular location I believe "keyword + Location would be the best idea to rank for (Even in near me searches to your location).
Google is smart enough to show the results based on location. It doesn't makes sense to add "near me" to the title. - topic:timeago_earlier,6 years
-
Good morning!
Great question, and a little history on this may be helpful.
In 2015, Google drew attention to the fact that users were increasingly using "near me" as a modifier for searches, and in an effort to prompt local results. According to Google the use of such terms as "near me" and "nearby" had doubled within the foregoing year. As a result of this, the use of "near me" terms became the subject of optimization experiments.
However, fast forward a couple of years, and Google came out with an update on this topic, which you can read in full here: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/local-search-mobile-search-micro-moments/ To sum up, these near-type searches had begun to subside. The obvious answer to the "why" of this is that users are becoming increasingly aware of that fact that Google will automatically localize a huge variety of searches to which they assign a local intent, without the user having to modify their search at all, with "near me" or even with a city name. You look up "pizza" on your phone in downtown San Francisco and you can be pretty sure Google is going to show you pizza places nearest you without you having to add a modifier of any kind.
So, does this mean that brands should no longer be including terms like "near me" in their website optimization? No, it doesn't mean that, as, according to Google, people are still searching this way. It's just that fewer of them are, so whereas in 2015 SEOs might have advised quite a good sprinkling of near-type language in a website's tags and text, in 2018, the recommended sprinkling would likely be quite a bit less. And I'll add an it-depends on this, too. There could be some demographics, perhaps by region, or age, or level of technological sophistication, or even business type where use of "near me" could still be quite prevalent. And let's not forget about voice search, and whether more natural language patterns might be leading folks to be asking their assistants, "Where's the best pizza near me?" instead of just saying "pizza".
Which brings me to why I'm voting in major favor of your A/B testing! It will help you identify which language best matches your customers' style of search. It would be really nice if, after your test, you might come back to this thread and let the community know how it went. Good luck!
-
I would for sure experiment with this, I'm working an industry where 'near me' keywords are incredibly popular. We've even created specific landing pages for them so we can target people with a specific question. Usually you won't be able to rank product or category pages just with these keywords on the page. They'll need to be specific to answer the user intent.
In regards to Nicholas, yes they'll understand the location and can use that. But it doesn't mean certain pages are the right ones to rank for that query. The question remains then if just adding it to the title will help enough.
-
While I agree with what Nicholas said, I've seen more and more instances of "near me" in titles when I search for something near me.
Check out the SERP for your queries in your area and see if others use it. -
In my experience adding "Near Me" is a waste of space in a Title Tag. Google knows where the user is and can identify the intent behind the words "near me" when in a search query, and when it comes to local searches it not needed in the title. I think it would be an interesting test/case study, but I believe it is best to use those 7 characters for something else in your meta title.
Check out this awesome WBF from Cyrus Shepard for some ideas- https://moz.com/blog/title-tag-hacks-whiteboard-friday.
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
-
Is using a H1 tag in a logo image bad for SEO?
We have brand logos on certain pages that have H1 tags in them - the H1 text being the brand's name, as this is what we'd want the title of the page to be. The logos are at the top of the page instead of a written title. But is this the best option for SEO? Do search engines value H1 tags in images as highly as a standard H1 tag?Would it be better for SEO to add an alt tag to the logo and add a separate H1 tag on the page that's also the name of the brand?
On-Page Optimization | Jun 13, 2024, 10:59 AM | DVLighting0 -
How "Top" or "Best" are considered when in front of keyword
I would like to know if someone has proven info how google today counts words "Top" or "Best" when in front of main keywords you try to rank for. For example, if I have a keyword like "Restaurants in Madrid" and I optimize that page without using words "top" or "best" will it have good rankings for keywords "top restaurants in madrid" and "best restaurants in madrid" ? I suppose that google is smart enough to know that web page should be good ranked even without using those 2 words but would like to know percentage of my loss if I just exclude those words from title tag and other important onpage factors. I want to rank high for all the 3 combinations, with "top", with "best" and without it in front so searching for best solution. I plan just to add one of those words, for example "top" and hope that google will know that "top" = "best" 🙂
On-Page Optimization | Oct 20, 2014, 7:47 PM | m2webs0 -
Colons in title tag?
Does Google view the colon as a keyword separator like it does with the pipe (|) character? Currently, our site automatically constructs the title tag based on the page name given by the user. Long ago, we started using the colon character to visually separate the brand & model of the product from the size, and as a result, all of our title tags have been constructed this way. This was done more to make it easier to read for humans than for search engines. My question is - should I consider getting rid of the colon from our title tags? To give more info, our website sells tires. So, for any given model of tire, there might be 25-100 different individual sizes. The tags are constructed as follows: (brand)(model) : (size). Here's an example from our site: GENERAL ALTIMAX ARCTIC : 225/45R17 91Q The brand is General Tire, the model is the Altimax Arctic and the size is 225/45R17 91Q Since this entire string really constitutes the full product name, should I remove the colon so that Google views it that way? Or, since I have used a colon instead of a pipe, will Google simply ignore it and treat the entire string as one keyword phrase?
On-Page Optimization | Jun 11, 2015, 8:45 AM | kcourtem0 -
What are "stop" words in Title Tags?
My client is following his GoDaddy SEO Checklist, and it is reporting 5 errors in Title Tags, saying the Titles contain "stop" words. I can't figure out what these are. Any ideas?
On-Page Optimization | Dec 15, 2013, 8:43 PM | cschwartzel0 -
Will "internal 301s" have any effect on page rank or the way in which an SE see's our site interlinking?
We've been forced (for scalability) to completely restructure our website in terms of setting out a hierarchy. For example - the old structure : country / city / city area Where we had about 3500 nicely interlinked pages for relevant things like taxis, hotels, apartments etc in that city : We needed to change the structure to be : country / region / area / city / cityarea So as patr of the change we put in place lots of 301s for the permanent movement of pages to the new structure and then we tried to actually change the physical on-page links too. Unfortunately we have left a good 600 or 700 links that point to the old pages, but are picked up by the 301 redirect on page, so we're slowly going through them to ensure the links go to the new location directly (not via the 301). So my question is (sorry for long waffle) : Whilst it must surely be "best practice" for all on-page links to go directly to the 'right' page, are we harming our own interlinking and even 'page rank' by being tardy in working through them manually? Thanks for any help anyone can give.
On-Page Optimization | Sep 6, 2013, 10:50 AM | TinkyWinky0 -
SEO Optimizing in UMBRACO
Hi there, I am planning to use UMBRACO to manage my existing website, so my question to Seomozzers out there is what should I be aware of, how safe is it to have UMBRACO in terms of SEO. By using this software, would it be possible to get a positive or negative impact on my keyword rankings? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | Mar 25, 2013, 11:46 AM | matti_wilson0 -
How bad is it going over 70 character for title tag length?
I know less than 70 is recommended. I am about to run a script to create some title tags and a few will be between 71-74. Is going just the few characters over ok until I can get in there and manually do them?
On-Page Optimization | Jan 9, 2013, 2:25 PM | EcommerceSite0 -
"And" vs "&"
I blog for hotels and I am wondering whether it is best to have on a wordpress tagline the name of the hotel such as Holiday Inn and Suites vs Holiday Inn & Suites. In Google AdWords, the "and" keyword always beats out the "&" word in exact search. The "&" just always looks cleaner. Also, when I refer to the hotel within a blog post, should I use the "and" or "&" in the name? Please help me understand which is best for seo. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | Nov 19, 2011, 12:15 AM | lwilkins0