Will changing the title tags cause me to lose rankings?

[webestate]

I have a site that gets pretty decent rankings.  Based on Seomoz's assessment of my site I have ALOT of title tags that are too long.

If I make modifications to my title tags will that hurt my rankings?

I am also thinking of removing my company name from the title tag as that is taking up too much space.

[webestate]

HI Doug,

Thank you for your input a while back!  Wanted to see if you could give me some insite on best practice for this........

On this site http://www.austintenantadvisors.com/ I have my main landing pages listed in the navigation under "Types".  The reason why I did this is because I am not sure where to put those on the home page where it does not look spammy to Google and looks natural for users.  Obviously they need to appear someone on the home page for Google to be able to crawl and index them.

Your thoughts?

[Francisco_Meza]

I think this looks WAY better than your other one. I'll give you a thumbs up because you're learning.

[webestate]

Thanks guys for all your feedback and suggestions.  I think I have decided on this one for the home page.

Austin TX Office Space & Commercial Real Estate. Find Rental Listings

Thoughts?

[webestate]

Thanks for that Francisco.  Luckily my landing pages rank as well as my home page and each has good content..  Just been trying to figure out the best Title for the home page.  I like what you suggested.

[DougRoberts]

Completely agree with Francisco. The problem with home pages is that people try and make them mean something to everyone - and they end up not meaning very much at all.

Home pages are usually your brand landing page - it's the best place for people trying to find out about your company.

For someone searching for a keyword specific to one of your offers - a specific landing page is definitely the way to go. You can make the pages extremely relevant to the search term, the user intent and your specific offering. Think of the benefits to the user when they're landing on the very best page to answer their query.

[Francisco_Meza]

You're over analyzing this. If your home page is the only page that ranks, you have problems. My website has 28% of incoming visits to the home page. 71% is to the landing pages.

BUILD highly relevant landing pages and write KICK ASS content for those landing pages.

This to me looks spammy:  Austin Office Space For Lease | Austin Commercial Real Estate Properties | Retail Space For Rent | Austin Tenant Advisors

Obviously you are trying to keyword stuff.

I would write something clickable like this: Office Space for Rent in Austin for Commercial & Retail. Get Rates.

[webestate]

Thanks Doug.  I totally agree with that however doing title tags for the home page is tough because that is the catch all right?  From the home page I have links to more specific landing pages (e.g office space, retail space, etc...)

What is best practice for the home page title tags?

[DougRoberts]

Are all these things equivalent? If someone was searching for office space, would they be interested in retail space?

Would there be any advantage using two separate pages targeting these two audiences each addressing the specific needs, and concerns specific to that type of customer?

Pages tend to be less engaging/appealing when there's a broad scope and generic content.

[Francisco_Meza]

Then start building quality links with anchor text include "Lease, Properties, Rent, Retail" in them.

[Francisco_Meza]

I really don't worry about it that much. I recommend to just do what is best for your customer and focus on conversions.

I literally copied and pasted from the SERP one of my pages. This is for the KW phrase "Ship car to Germany".

Shipping Car to Germany from USA - Save money shipping autos to ...

<cite>www.shipoverseas.com/us/ship-car/.../shipping-car-to-germany.html</cite>Shipping car to Germany from USA. Departure & Arrival Ports, Documents, Duty Tax. We ship cars for private individuals, active US military,and tourists.Notice that the keyword "Ship" is not in the title, but the related KW "Shipping" is. If I change the title tag to "Ship Car to Germany", then my rankings may be affected a little, but that's going to depend on where the competitors rank in Google's algorithm too. Now that I look at this, I have to change my title tag and description because I have better content on my page.

[webestate]

Thank you for the response.  The challenge I have in adding my company name is that its 3 words and takes up space.......leaving less space for #1 and #2 keywords.

How do you suggest I handle that?  I guess if Austin was the first keyword I could just have Tenant Advisors in the very end.

For example -

My current title tag:  Austin Office Space For Lease | Austin Commercial Real Estate Properties | Retail Space For Rent | Austin Tenant Advisors

I could use this instead?  Austin Office Space & Commercial Real Estate Tenant Advisors

If I do that then I'm leaving out Lease, Properties, Rent, Retail

[webestate]

Do you have your company name in the title also?  Ive been reading it's important however in my industry people don't typically search by brand name......they search for exactly what they are looking for.

Did your rankings go down a little first?  I have been told that I may experience decreased rankings for a few weeks.

[webestate]

That was a great post by Rand.  Thanks for sharing.

Because my company name has 3 words it takes up a lot of characters.  That is why I'm having a hard time squeezing it in and may just leave out.  Besides when someone searches for my services they don't look up my company name they typically look up a keyword.

Also, what has been your experience about rankings and changing title tags?  Should I expect them to go down for a few weeks?

[DougRoberts]

Remember to consider that it's not just rankings, but also about getting click-through from the SERPS.

Searchers have got to feel that they are going to find what they're looking for when they look at your entry in the search results. I agree with Francisco that it's good to have a call to action in your title tag if you can (but it's not always applicable for every type of page), but also consider if you can get a benefit in there too - what's in it for me if I click on this entry...

In my experience long title tags tend to be less compelling than shorter ones, and can be compromised entirely if they're being cut-off.

Long title tags can also make it more complicated for people to share your content on social sites and even email. We've all experienced URLs that get broken when long lines get word-wrapped in email!

Your Brand or company name can be an important trust signal that may affect the attractiveness of your SERPS entry to searchers. You need to consider the search intent, and the standing of your company/brand in the market or niche your in.

You may find that it's not quite as black and white as {company name} {keyword} or visa-versa. You may want to have your company name in some titles and not others depending on the content and target audience (and their level of awareness of your products/services.

The only way to know for sure is to test. People are funny things and while you can try and make well informed decisions there can always be unforeseen consequences. Keep track of the changes you make, and measure the effect.

Good luck!

[Francisco_Meza]

Make sure you watch the part where Rand talks about over optimizing your title tag. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/6-changes-every-seo-should-make-before-the-over-optimization-penalty-hits-whiteboard-friday

Here is my rule and I think EVERYONE should remember it. 1st word in the title is the most important. 2nd word is the 2nd most important. The last word in the title tag is the least important. Anything above 65 character is wasting time. Make your title tag enticing enough that people want to click it. Put your keyword and a call to action.

[Boodreaux]

I had a bunch of title tags that were too long and I shortened all of them to be close to the max.    My ranks all went up higher over a 2-4 week period. I just made sure all the important key words remained in the title.

[jim_cetin]

if you focus on your main keywords, then it shouldn't be an issue, but keep in mind some listings will possibly change.