Title Tag - Best Practices
-
I'm pretty new to seo but think I'm starting to get a decent grasp on it. One thing I'm really struggling with is how to organize the meta title tags on my website. I work in real estate and I'm noticing a lot of my local competitors that are ranking for the top keywords seem to using that particular keyword on every title tag within their website.
An example would be www.paranych.com. Many of his internal pages have the word "Edmonton Real Estate" in the meta title tag, yet his home page is the page that is ranking for that particular keyword. It doesn't seem logical to have every one of my pages featuring the same keyword, but there are many examples within my industry of this working.
Is the best practice with meta title tags to have your keyword on every title tag of your site or just the home page?
Thx, Barry
-
This may be that they do not know better or have limited resources. It doesn't matter what a competitor is doing as you can always do better.
More than often the reason is because that is the default value for their meta tags.
Meta descriptions and meta tags in general are for as you would say it "sales pitch". Meta data holds little to no weight in ranking as mentioned before.
-
A lot of SEO clients we have are real estate agencies. We always recommend that you diversify this information so as not to canibalize your own keywords. We generally suggest location (such as Edmonton) and then other top keywords for your area, usually stuff like
Edmonton Real Estate
Edmonton Homes for Sale
Edmonton Property Listings
etc.
We also suggest that you really take advantage of specific location searches, so if you have a property listing page in a specific area, it is a good idea to include the zip code. This is where keyword data provided usually fails and you need an intimate knowledge of your area/industry because people often perform searches based on yard signs they have seen - and there will be no keyword data for this.
-
I do realize that the meta description is more of your sales pitch that shows up in the serps but am still curious why my competition would use the same keyword in all of their title tags. Would this not diminish your ability the ability to rank on that keyword?
-
There is <title>which is important both for ranking and is the headline used in the serps and then there is the <meta name="description" title="title that is display below the title in the serps"/> this is not a factor in the ranking algo, but is important as a creative.</p></title>
-
Yes, my answer was assuming yo uare talking about meta title tag.
-
Hi William, I am referring to the meta title tag. Sorry if that confused your answer. Would you answer be the same knowing this information?
-
This happens often because a lot of platforms that sites run don't allow you to manipulate every single page. It is sometimes automated.
However, most sites allow you to pick from pages and posts, which is usually what is most important. Best practice title tags are generally to create a good CTR. Title tags have really little to no weight on SEO.
Meta tags are more for CTR and attracting the right user.
Let's say you have evaluations of real estate, you target is not to sell real estate but to provide reviews. You would gear your meta tags towards evaluations and reviews and not buy and sell. Attracting the right user will give you better numbers and actual conversions. You don't want someone visiting your site if they have no chance of converting in the first place anyway.
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
-
Google suddenly stops ranking a page for a "keyword" with same "keyword" in title tag. Low competition.
Hi all, We have released our next version of product called like "software 11", which have thousands of searches every month. So we have just added this same keyword "software 11" as page title suffix to one of the top ranking pages. Obviously this is the page has been added suddenly with "software 11" at page title, multiple header tags and 1 mention in paragraph. Google ranked it for 2 days and suddenly stopped showing this page in entire results for the same keyword we optimised the page for. Why does it happened? Does Google think that we are overdoing with this page and ignoring it? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Site Scraping and Canonical Tags
Hi, So I recently found a site (actually just one page) that has scraped my homepage. All the links to my site have been removed except the canonical tag, should this be disavowed through WMT or reported through WMT's Spam Report? Thanks in advance for any feedback.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | APFM0 -
Unique page URLs and SEO titles
www.heartwavemedia.com / Wordpress / All in One SEO pack I understand Google values unique titles and content but I'm unclear as to the difference between changing the page url slug and the seo title. For example: I have an about page with the url "www.heartwavemedia.com/about" and the SEO title San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | About I've noticed some of my competitors using url structures more like "www.competitor.com/san-francisco-video-production-about" Would it be wise to follow their lead? Will my landing page rank higher if each subsequent page uses similar keyword packed, long tail url? Or is that considered black hat? If advisable, would a url structure that includes "san-francisco-video-production-_____" be seen as being to similar even if it varies by one word at the end? Furthermore, will I be penalized for using similar SEO descriptions ie. "San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Portfolio" and San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Contact" or is the difference of one word "portfolio" and "contact" sufficient to read as unique? Finally...am I making any sense? Any and all thoughts appreciated...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | keeot0 -
Alt tag best practices for a mutli gallery site with hundreds of images
I have neglected to add alt tags to one of my sites, and am ready to tackle the project. I want to make sure I do not do something that will have a negative impact on rankings....and I have not been able to find info that fits my situation. The pics are all about a product I make and sell through the site. I have a free gallery section that has about 10 galleries with about 20 pics each. Each gallery page has a different model and/or context of how the product. might be used. These are not sales pages directly just thumbnail galleries linked to larger images for the viewers enjoyment. I have 10 or so keyword phrases that would be good to use, with the intent to start getting listed in google images and other rank enhancements. Can I choose one keyword phrase as my alt tag choice for a whole gallery and give each individual large pic in the gallery that same alt tag, And use a different phrase for the next gallery's pics etc.? Or is that thought of as stuffing, and I would have to come up with a different keyword phrase for each pic? I hope that makes sense. Thanks Galen
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Tetruss0 -
Would having a + plus sign between keywords in meta title have an effect on SEO?
I have seen one of my clients' competitors do this in their meta title and it got me a little intrigued... I understand that google uses the + sign as an operator in adwords, and to a certain extent, as a search tool, but would it help or make any difference to the SEO in the meta title/data (eg. 'SEO+Marketing+Services')? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | LexisClick10 -
What are the best ways of improving our domain authority?
My site's domain authority has gone down by a few points recently. What the best ways of increasing it? It's currently 29 out of 100. What is a good domain authority number?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Saunders18650 -
Best use of domains with keywords
I own a domain with just the company name in it (no keywords) that I use as main domain. I also own some other domain with keywords inside that right now I redirect all to the main domain with a 301 redirect. What is the best use for these domains? Should I use them when I do link building or is better to use just the main domain? Can they be useful to increase the main domain link juice/page rank? If yes, how? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | darkanweb0