Page Title
-
My website was hacked last November and then again last week. Prior to the hacking we were at number one in Google.co.uk for our main search term "nile cruises' for years.
After last November's hacking we dropped to about position 4 and after last week we are at position 7.
Ima rebuilding the lost data and I am having to create new Title and Description meta data for each of the indexed pages.
I am taking the opportunity to try and ensure my titles and descriptions are good and the correct length, etc but wondered about the best title format.
I set our home page title over the weekend as:
Nile Cruise | Leading ABTA & ATOL Bonded UK Nile Cruise Specialist
I was going to try and cover 3 keyphrases in the title like this:
Nile Cruise | Nile Cruises | Nile Cruise Bargains
But I thought that might look a bit spammy because the 3 phrases are very similar.
I wondered what anyone else might suggest?
Thanks,
Colin
-
I agree Nathan. Thanks.
I'm going to take Marcus's and your advice with the title.
Cheers,
Colin
-
Thanks Marcus. I'm hoping that that's the case.
The annoying thing si that "information-wise" we are a much better site. We have Blog posts and information going back to 2007 and much more content but that site still ranks above us at the moment.
However I intend to fight the good fight as you say. I think membership of SEOMoz is going to be a great help especially when you can call upon the kindness of people like yourself to share their knowledge.
Thanks,
Colin
-
HI Colin,
I agree with Marcus's response below. Getting all the keywords in the title tags and not sounding spammy can be tough, especially when dealing with the home page since that page can sometimes be the catch all page.
From what I have been told it does not benefit you to repeat the same word more than once like you do in this example.............Nile Cruise | Nile Cruises | Nile Cruise Bargains. By repeating Nile 3 times you are missing out on being able to include other keywords.
His example is a great example - Nile Cruises & Cruise Bargains - UK ABTA & ATOL Cruise Specialist
It includes a different variation of each (singular or plural)
-
Hey, I would question the quality of that competitors links if they suddenly got 6000 and currently opensiteexplorer and such don't really account for quality so just keep fighting the good fight and try to create a better and more informative site than your competitor.
-
Hi Marcus,
Thanks for that advice and your suggestions. Hopefully (in some way) the drop might be a result of the Google changes and perhaps with hard SEO work I can regain our lost position.
One of our competitors seemed to appear from nowhere last November with about 6,000+ links which dwarfs our back link total. So I think it will be hard to overtake them very quickly but perhaps on-page and content improvements will help us compete.
We do have a WP blog on the site but the main site is built on Cold Fusion.
Colub
-
Hey Colin, I much prefer a good branded or descriptive title so this:
Nile Cruise | Leading ABTA & ATOL Bonded UK Nile Cruise Specialist
Is way better than this: Nile Cruise | Nile Cruises | Nile Cruise Bargains
If you wanted to cover those phrases or words you could always try to work them in to the title in a more natural way say something like.
Nile Cruises & Cruise Bargains - UK ABTA & ATOL Cruise Specialist
That is a super quick example but it works in many more of the words and phrases in a non spammy way. Sure you could do better!
Also, with all the changes in search of late (penguin, panda etc) then don't assume the hack was the loss of your rankings, it could be the natural moving target nature of search or one of many other causes. By the way, what are you using that is getting hacked so often? WordPress? There are options to easily toughen it up and just going that little step extra is usually enough to put off most 'hackers'.
Hope this helps
Marcus
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 it better to have an hreflang go to the home page in a different language if there's no corresponding page
If I have some pages in English, but not in Spanish on my website: Should my hreflang go to the home page on the Spanish site? Or should I not have an "es-MX" hreflang for that page? Ideally I would have all the pages translated, but this has not all been done yet.
On-Page Optimization | | RoxBrock0 -
Page Not Indexed
Hi Guys I wrote and published an article last night on my site but it is yet to be indexed. This is strange as articles are usually indexed pretty quickly. Could you have a quick look and see what the problem is? http://www.rankmytri.com/tomtom-running-and-triathlon-watch/ Also all my Blog posts (in the blog section of the site) are not indexed as well (and I dont think they have been for a while) yet I dont have any messages from Google in my webmaster tools. Thoughts? Thanks in advance Ross
On-Page Optimization | | ross88guy0 -
How can i change my landing page title in search engines?
Hi SEO folks, Please help! I've changed my home page title 30 days ago, but my Google search results is still showing the old one! Why is that happening? can I've a brief explanation please so i can learn. thanks a million cRnPa6d
On-Page Optimization | | aptustelecom0 -
Category listing page coming above product pages
A new SEO client we have taken on seem to be hitting most of the points right on with their site and SEO. However one thing that is bugging me is that their category pages i.e. "Footwear" which title tag includes the brands they stock. Is almost always coming up above (if they are ever even found) the product individual pages. Anyone seen this sort of things happening? Very frustrating.
On-Page Optimization | | iboxsecurityltd0 -
Can I use Same Keyword for Multi pages Title Tags?
Hello All, I am working on client website and currently they are targeting One Keywords for multi pages. As I have search with Allintitle: Search query and Google display around 37 pages of website which carry same keyword in "Title Tags". I have told to client to change the "Title Tags" but they want that keyword for all relevant pages. So I want to know is that harm in Search Engine Ranking? Note: They have not done the link building activities for multi pages with same Keyword, they are using only in "Title Tags" only
On-Page Optimization | | jemindesai0 -
Title and Url Agreement
In the case of trying to hit a wide taxonomy, is it better to keep your title and URL in agreement, or to vary them slightly for exact search matching. For instance this blog post which has the following url: http://www.simplifiedbuilding.com/blog/build-your-own-standing-desk/ has the title "Make a Stand Up Desk - Better Working, Longer Living" The ideas is that build and make are similar words and "stand up" and "standing" are also similar. So what is the better way to go?
On-Page Optimization | | CPollock0 -
Does my actual blog post title have any effect once I create a title tag for SEO purposes?
A little confused about this. Reason I ask is that using my actual title for my title tag sometimes isn't the best for getting ranked, so the title and title tag are sometimes not the same.
On-Page Optimization | | seo_f20120 -
Woah, my A-grade optimized pages that were on the first page have all vanished outside the top 50 in Google... is this Panda?
Yep as mentioned, I had some pages hit the top ten pretty quickly after ensuring they were A-grade for pretty uncompetitive keywords however, today, all bar 2 have just vanished from the top 50! All were ranking in Google.co.uk and I know we were predicting the Panda update to hit soon but WOW! My client is understandably a little upset, what on earch do I tell him and what should I do about it? Cheers! jT
On-Page Optimization | | Switch_Digital0