Is it better to include the secondary keyword or site name in a title tag?
-
When I add a site name to my title tag with long-tailed primary and secondary keywords the title tag is longer than 70 characters. I need to include all three parts, so what should I do? At 70 characters the site name is usually partially cut off. I do not want to get penalized by Google, but I need to include the site name to have consistency. I am using the format Primary Keyword-Secondary Keyword | Site name
-
Thank you Alex for your response! I am going to include more keywords in my meta description than just my h1 tag. I am starting to figure things out. Thanks again!
-
I don't believe you'll get 'penalised by Google' if the title tag is too long - as you know your full title just won't display in the search engine results pages (SERPs). If your site name is well-known and/or might improve click-throughs it is worth having it visible in the title tag. Personally I don't see a problem with the site name cutting off on some occasions - it's not going to stop people clicking is it...?
The meta description should be geared more towards getting click-throughs - as you probably know the words people search for show bold on the SERPs so as long as it reads naturally and doesn't look spammy, it's worth having other keywords in there too. Just remember it's there to encourage people to click to your site.
-
Great, thank you Daniel! This is for a static page on my blog that has h1 and h2 tags. I heard that you only need to include the h1 keyword in your meta description. Is that true?
-
Use only the primary keyword.
You can use both in the body text, headings, meta description, etc. (if they're related).
Either of these title formats would work nicely:
Primary Keyword | Category | Site Name
or
Primary Keyword - Category | Site Name
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
-
Title tag of product page including category keyword?
I'm doing some work on a site that essentially is about giving and getting reviews. It's heirarchy has categories and products within those categories. For the title tag of the product pages, they currently have "Best {Category} | {Product} Reviews" I've advised them that they should remove the "Best {Category}" part because a) they're already targeting the category pages themselves and b) from a user perspective, the product page should just have a title tag that makes sense for that particular page (the page is not necessarily the "best" and certainly is not a series of products within that category). I wanted to post here to confirm that my advice is sound. Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | jim_shook0 -
Simple on-site SEO - bet practice for keywords in content
Hello, The Moz on-page grader will give a grade of A if the keyword appears exactly in the content at least one time. If there are 500 words and a lot of it is about the main keyword, what have you found to be important to look for beyond the on-page grader - beyond the one exact instance of the keyword? I'm specifically talking just about keywords in the content. My guess is that it needs to occur 3 or 4 times in different forms and at least once exactly, but the on-page grader doesn't require it. What have you found?
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
? Keyword stuffing
I have a new website. Did "on page grading". Although the page received a grade of A the only area that did not receive a check mark was key word stuffing. It recommended I not use keyword more that 15 times but I only counted 11 uses of the key phrase "breast augmentation." However the phrase is also used in alt tag of images which would take me over 15. Are alt tag on images counted and is this a concern? I tried to use "augmentation mammaplasty" to reduce the use of the phrase "breast augmentation" but will use of "augmentation" and "breast" alone also cause the count to increase for the phrase "breast augmentation"
On-Page Optimization | | wianno1680 -
Redirect closing established site to another established site.
We have 2 ecommerce websites with duplicate product/category content that have been around for years. "Site A" since 2004 and "Site B" since 2011. "Site B" doesn't generate many sells and we want to close the site in fear that it may look spammy to google and since we don't want to upkeep the site. Couple questions:
On-Page Optimization | | Tuurbo
1. Is it possible that "Site B" has damaged "Site A" with google since they are so similar?
2. Can i 301 redirect all of "Site B" to "Site A" without hurting "Site A"?
3. If question 2 is ok, should i use the "Change of Address" tool in google webmaster tools to point "Site B" to "Site A"? Thanks!0 -
Trying to SEO a site that used Header Tags for Design
I am trying to SEO a website that was built years ago and uses Header tags for design. The site must have 25 and tags used for design purpose. Is there any way to work around this problem? Perhaps a code that tells Google to ignore these as Headers? The web designers say that they are looking to fix the problem sometime this summer but you never know if that means it a month away or years away. I really want to help this website but I believe that the Header tags are one of the reasons that his site does not show in the top 100 rankings for any keywords. Any help would be great. www.wallybuysell.com Chris.K
On-Page Optimization | | CKerr0 -
Why I am ranking for irrelevant keywords
My website is e-commerce and used to rank for all industry related keywords like buy widgets, cheap widgets, online widgets in top10. And suddenly my website was hacked and to resolve this hacking issue i have re-write all my dynamic urls into static pages after that new pages are indexed and ranking well. But after few months i have notice few changes in keywords ranking going down. But suddenly after Google Algo (EMD/Panda) update on Sept 27 i lost all my positions. And then according to Google guidelines i have worked on over optimization and low quality pages. I have removed all tones of low quality pages from SERP and simultaneously worked on url re-write. But i have notice small percent of changes in keyword positions like when Google Algo (EMD/Panda) is rolled out i lost my keyword positions from 1st page to 200 page and after working on over optimization and low quality pages the keywords are came back to 100 pages. Recently i have notice that my web pages ranking for irrelevant keywords. For example, let's say i used to rank for home page for these keywords; buy widgets, cheap widgets, online widgets but now am ranking for different inner pages say (guide pages). Can any one suggest me whats wrong..
On-Page Optimization | | BipSum0 -
Page Title - What is better?
Hi SEO Heads, I have another question if someone would be so kind in answering What page title of the 2 below is better for SEO (i) Chocolate Cake|Chocolate Cake Recipe|Xmas Cake or (ii) Chocolate Cake | Chocolate Cake Recipe | Xmas Cake As you can see (ii) Page Title has a space before and after the | (vertical bar) I know the second page title looks better to human eyes but on some pages I had to forego the space so i could fit my keywords in the page title. is this a good idea? Can anyone help me? Cheers Aidan
On-Page Optimization | | aidanlawlor0 -
To enter keyword meta tags or to not enter keyword meta tags?
I've been doing SEO for awhile, but new to SEOMoz. I'm surprised that SEOMoz does not recommend keyword meta tags. I didn't enter them for the longest time because I know Google doesn't care about them. However, I did read that other search engines DO use them. And therefore that is why you should have them. I teach my customers about SEO, and I know it would be much easier for them not to enter or worry about the keyword meta tags. However, I would love to hear opinions here. And to Bing/Yahoo put any weight into them or is it only really small search engines? Thanks! Hilary
On-Page Optimization | | endlessrange0