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.
Optimizing for another keyword than the menu name
-
Hi
I would like to hear if someone could help me decide whether or not it is important regarding SEO that the menu name is the same as the keyword we want to rank for.
The site is a static site and one of our most important keywords.
To give an example. Our menu name is "cars" and we want to rank for "cheap rental cars".
-
My question was probably not specific enough - sorry.
Example:
Today our top menu could be: "Automobiles" (which is the keyword, that we want to target) But "Cars" is shorter and easier to use, and looks better. There we would like to change it.
Below this we have several pages with: Automobiles inHow much value does it have to have the exact keyword in the main menu of the site?
- the menu is on all pages on our site.
We have several other internal links with anchortext "Automobiles" linking to the page.
-
Hi Kenneth,
Note: it is less important to have the major keywords in the menu....
Think about long tail keywords: if they were all in menu (such as: vacation-houses on the beach) then we would need all the screen only for menu.
Think about targeting the text more closely to the targeted keyword, think about if they seek for cheap car rentals, when they end up on your landing page, does it really provide the right information for them? After you optimize your text and deliver the products on this landing page you are half way done with the optimizing.
Don't try to stuff the text with keywords, use synonyms, make it more readable, provide information.
I believe that the menu name does not influence as much as the content on the specific page; so my advice: work on content more, and worry less on the menu name (that should be used for users and not robots).
I hope that helped,
Istvan
-
If, by menu name, you mean title tag, it is important. If you mean you have a menu with a Main Tab = Cars and below that are several choices: Expensive Rental Cars, Moderate Rental Cars, Cheap Rental Cars, the main tab being cars will not hurt you.
Look at the url : YourSite.com/cars/cheap-rental-carsIf that is how it looks, I see no problem with it. If it looks like this YourSite.com/cars and the thing you want to rank for on the page is cheap-rental-cars that by itself will not help but won't kill you. I would use the cheap-rental-cars and have a title tag that says Cheap Rental Cars | YourSite.com.
Hope this helped you out.
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
-
How to Incorporate Awkward Keyword Phrases
Certain keywords are good choices for my website (high CTR, low difficulty, high volume), but they would be very awkward to use in my website content. For example, "therapist near me" is a popular search term, but it would be very strange for me to use those words in that order in my content (I am a therapist). Any thoughts about this are welcome.
On-Page Optimization | | LPantell0 -
Meta keywords
should every site have meta keywords or is this not used anymore? I don't use yoast and prefer rank math but there is nowhere to insert it. when I look at moz bar it shows meta keywords as a field so maybe it is important...
On-Page Optimization | | Mosaj0 -
Should I optimize my home-page or a sub-page for my most important keyword
Quick question: When choosing the most important keyword set that I would like to rank for, would I be better off optimizing my homepage, or a sub page for this keyword. My thinking goes as follows: The homepage (IE www.mysite.com) naturally has more backlinks and thus a better Google Page Rank. However, there are certain things I could do to a subpage (IE www.mysite.com/green-widgets-los-angeles ) that I wouldn't want to do to the homepage, which might be more "optimal" overall. Option C, I suppose, would be to optimize both the homepage, and a single sub-page, which is seeming like a pretty good solution, but I have been told that having multiple pages optimized for the same keywords might "confuse" search engines. Would love any insight on this!
On-Page Optimization | | Jacob_A2 -
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 -
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 -
How many keywords max can I optimize each page for?
I don't want to over optimize by doing 1 keyword per 1 page, but then if I do more, seomoz on-page tool report doesn't give an A grade for each keyword I optimize. I usually optimize for max 3 keywords that are very closely related, meaning they use the same words. Ex. dentist los angeles, los angeles dentist, dentist in los angeles Am I on the right track or what's your recommendation? Should I create different landing pages for each keyword?
On-Page Optimization | | sub90900 -
Transferring authority from one domain to another
My dilemma For example: If I have a website ranking at number 11 for (Keyword) and there is a site named www.(Keyword).com ranking at number 12 for (Keyword), if I were to buy this site and redirect to my own site, would this be at all beneficial? Any advice would be much appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | CMoore850 -
My Domain Name - short vs relevant
I'm creating a website for my new web design company in Vancouver. I'm looking to target such keywords as "Web Design Vancouver", etc. I have another company with a hyphenated domain name which is terrible when I'm on the phone and my client asks me for my domain (hard to say, always spelling it out). Also I wanted to have a good snappy name for my new business so I found a 6 letter .com and matching .ca for my company. My question is: is it best to use a short domain name or is it better have my keywords in the domain name? eg. xyz.com vs xyzvancouverwebdesign.com Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | VebianWebandMobileDevelopment0