How different does each page tilte need to be?

[JAARON]

I've got a site that is all about wood countertops. There are a few ways people can find info on wood tops.

• (main) wood countertops
• (main) butcher block
• butcher block counters
• wood counters
• hardwood countertops
• etc.

For the most part I want to rank for the two top key phrases because they pretty much cover all the other basis with google being as smart as it is. So they question is how different should each page title be?

Examples:

1. Wood Countertops - Butcher Block Counters | by J. Aaron = index page
2. Wood Counter tops - Butcher Block Counters - About Us | J. Aaron = about us page
3. Cleaning Butcher Block - Wood Countertop Maintenance | J. Aaron = care & maintenance page

Would it be OK to use:

<title>Wood Countertops - Butcher Block Counters | by J. Aaron</title>

as the template for the whole site with the addition of the actual page subject as an additional piece of the sentence, like example 2 or would that be too similar? Also is that a good idea or should I commit to optimizing each page for a different key phrase? If so would you optimize the home page for the most searched for phrase and let the other pages back it up with the other search terms?

[AWCthreads]

Hi Josh,

Keeping in mind I don't know anything about wood counters and kitchen islands, I would make this observation about your title:

<title>walnut kitchen island with undermount sink and tung-oil wood seal(65)er | J. Aaron</title>

1. Too long. You've only got about 65 spaces for a title, then Google clips off the rest. I limit titles to 60 spaces or less.

2. You've got what appears to be 2 related keywords (which you could probably rank for on one page) and a 3rd unrelated keyword in "tung oil wood seal."

3. "Walnut Kitchen Island" looks like a good long tail keyword to me (kitchen island would be short while adding the walnut is a longer tail qualifier).

4. The longer the tail, the more you qualify the buyer.

5. I tighter title would be: "Walnut Kitchen Island with Undermount Sink by J. Aaron"

6. Depending on your site structure you might have a page with a variety of Walnut Kitchen Islands on it with a link to a separate page with an undermount sink (which is what this revised title would suggest).

6. "Tongue Oil Wood Seal" seems like it should be on a page about how to protect and maintain your countertops.

7. Putting your store's name or your name on the page title is fine and standard practice when brand building. Some put it on the back as you do, some on the front and some not at all. If there is room, I put our store's name on the title, if not I leave it off.

8. If you're optimizing for local business, its fine to put your city, state or combination in the title.

9. I've got our store name and street address in the footer so it shows on every page. For pages I really want to kick butt locally on, I put the city, state in the title, otherwise I leave it off and let the footer do the work.

[JAARON]

So you're saying as the pages get more dedicated I should up the description level like

<title>walnut kitchen island with undermount sink and tung-oil wood sealer | J. Aaron</title> (Is it a real good idea to keep the " | J. Aaron" in every title or can that go away. It's not like it's a brand that people know or even a product that people associate with brands at all.)

What if I have several pictures of very similar products with their own pages. Should I just set one up as the master page and put a canonical tag on the other "walnut kitchen island tops with undermount sinks and tung-oil sealers" to link to the master page? I can separate them out as much as possible like the ones with distressing would be different and the ones without sinks could be different.

[JAARON]

Thanks everyone. I'll make a few changes and see what happens. I'm trying not to over optimize but I still want to do the best with this portion of the SEO as possible.

This is a bit off subject but do any of you know why when I put new content on the site via blog post or new pages I'm not getting a google alert. I've done searches for that page and know google is indexing them but never get the alert. I used to but haven't for a while. Should that be a concern?

Thanks again.

[AWCthreads]

Hi Joshua,

I would second the preceding replies and offer this: before you implement your page titles I would recommend three things:

1. Develop a better understanding of keyword research and the difference between broad, phrase and exact match as they relate to long vs short tail keywords.

2. Develop a better understanding of structuring your title with keywords. For example,"<title>Wood Countertops - Butcher Block Counters | by J. Aaron</title>" looks to me more like a breadcrumb than a homepage title. At face value, I would think that title would link to a page about Butcher Block Counters (which is a specific type of wood counter that would have its own page).

3. Wood countertops is a very broad short-tail term - probably very early in the buying cycle and very difficult to hit page 1. If you're a local wood countertop shop, I would optimize locally for immediate results while you build your domain authority so you can rank for these shorter tail terms.

[EGOL]

Your title tags will appear as a clickable link in the google search results.

That title should clearly describe the contents of the page that the visitor will see upon clicking.

If you do that and have duplicate title tags then there is probably a good justification for combining those pages.

Don't forget to optimize for some kitchen, wood species,  photos, colors, etc. terms.  The diversity of queries for this type of traffic is enormous.

[DavidKonigsberg]

I believe every page should be different so its clear to google that each page hs unique value and belongs in the index - I would think if had to pick which term I  want google to show this page for vs the home page and use that as the title and be clear to google this is the page by not using the title again