State Abbreviations and/or Fully Spelled Out?
-
Should State names be abbreviated and/or fully spelled out in title tags, meta descriptions and body content?
Does Google know that VT = Vermont?
-
"would the formats with the highest results (2400 & 3600) ALSO include all the results in the lower number formats?"
The search volume information provided is Local Monthly Searches based on Exact Match. You can read more about Exact Match here: http://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2497825?hl=en
"In cases where you want to mention the state, would presenting it like this be harmful?"
Each time you add a new term to a title tag, you are increasing the page's relevancy to the new keyword at the cost of decreasing it to the previous keyword. Let's enter the theoretical world where all things are equal:
Title 1 - Homes for rent in orlando
Title 2 - Homes for rent in orlando fl
Title 3 - Homes for rent in orlando fl | florida
The problem with the 3rd option is it would never result in an exact match, which is the strongest relevancy boost possible. Personally, I cannot think of a scenario where I would ever use such a format.
All things being equal, if a user search for "homes for rent in orlando" then the first title wins (i.e. ranks highest). If a user searches for "homes for rent in orlando fl" then the second title wins.
The reality is this keyword is so competitive that anything short of a perfect match is not likely to get you in to the top 5 results.
Homes.com, Trulia.com, craigslist.org, Realtor.com, rentals.com, ForRent.com, etc. These are the sites which rank for the term. In fact, if you don't break the top 3 results, then the local results push you so far down the page, you might as well not exist.
When optimizing a title tag, the approach I take is to think as if I needed to rank #1 for the term. Once you achieve that goal, you can change your strategy and diversify. Until then...eye of the tiger.
-
In your examples of homes for rent in orlando & jacksonville, would the formats with the highest results (2400 & 3600) ALSO include all the results in the lower number formats?
In cases where you want to mention the state, would presenting it like this be harmful?
VT | Vermont
-
"Does Google know that VT = Vermont?"
Yes. Try this search: https://www.google.com/search?q=vt&gl=us&pws=0
Notice on the right side of the screen Google offers information on two topics: Virginia Tech and Vermont. Google knows your query likely pertains to one of these topics but is unsure which, so it offers both.
"Should State names be abbreviated and/or fully spelled out in title tags, meta descriptions and body content?"
In content, you should use whatever format you feel would best connect with your reader. If I was to mention Los Angeles, I would not typically feel the need to mention California since the city is recognized world-wide.
For Miami, there is both Miami, Ohio and Miami, Florida. If I was writing about Miami Ohio, I would definitely mention the state name. If I was writing about Miami Florida, most readers would automatically make the connection to Florida, especially if I mentioned anything to do with the ocean, a major city, etc.
For meta descriptions, most of the above applies but you are once again focused on connecting with your reader. The main goal is to improve click-through-rate for your search listing.
For Title Tags, this should be decided first. The title should be closely aligned, or perfectly matched, to the keyword focus of the article. Otherwise, it again can depend on the situation. Take a look at the following example:
Miami Dolphins start the season 6-0. It is unlikely you would ever wish to add FL or Florida to that tag.
You can perform keyword research to determine which version has more traffic. Many SEOs will make the decision in that manner.
Consider the following exact match local monthly search volume in Google.com:
homes for rent in orlando 2400
homes for rent in orlando fl 1300
homes for rent in orlando florida 260
Clearly, the preference is not to use state information based if your focus is finding the maximum search volume for this query. But what about....
homes for rent in jacksonville 110
homes for rent in jacksonville fl 3600
homes for rent in jacksonville florida 210
In this instance, adding the abbreviated state name to the query is very important.
As with most SEO related questions, the topic can go a bit deep. Keyword research is a critical component to a successful SEO campaign, and takes time, testing and experience to find the optimal variation of the term.
Best of luck.
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
-
Tag Clouds in Google Despite Canonical Links for Single Tags/Articles
I am frustrated to see a lot tag clouds in Google even though I programmed my tagged pages to display a canonical link to the linking article if the is only one result for the tag cloud. The goal to to make sure that the article, which is of better quality than the tag page, ends up in Google without a bunch of thin tag pages getting in there. For instance this article should be in Google and this tag should not be because that tag has a canonical URL for that article. I do not have a lot of experience with tag cloud SEO because I prefer to limit such pages to categories, but I have found tag clouds to be important for aggregating information for specific issues, people, or places that are not already a site category. Some tags I have used to power social media pages that update automatically from RSS feeds for their related tag archives. That is quite useful for pages like that. Should I start using Meta noindex for those instead of rel canonical? I have already done that for author profiles because author profiles get a lot of on site links compared to individual articles because my gridviews use javascript for paging. The same is true for the tags, so if a tag is tagged in 30 articles it will have links from 30 articles but if those articles are not in the latest 20 for that tag only the latest 20 will have links back from the tag archive. I also suspect having a lot of tag pages with little content to negatively impact my indexing rate. I will see a number of recent tag pages added before new articles.
On-Page Optimization | | CopBlaster.com0 -
Keyword/phrase proximity
I'm curious about opinions regarding how the search algorithms treat multiple key phrases that may reside in one long tail key phrase. So for example: If I'm optimizing for "New York Litigation Lawyer", would that also give me rankings for "New York Lawyer"? My thought is that the former will be considered the primary keyword and rankings will improve mostly for that, but that the latter keyword could also possibly see some lift as well. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | nickturner9221 -
Ratio follow/nofollow outbound links
Dear all, So far, I couldn't find any satisfying answer to my problem - I hope you might be able to help: Due to the fact that our website consists of user-generated content, we've got many many outbound links to other sites. Until now, it was possible to assign a follow-attribute to these links. In the ages of "pandas" however, we realised we had to limit this possibility as well as the amount of outbound follow links already published. My question now is whether there is some kind of rule of thumb as to what ratio of outbound follow and nofollow links is advisable. I'd appreciate any ideas or comments. Thanks a lot!
On-Page Optimization | | Mulle0 -
Description tag/ duplicate content.
Quick question - will Gg deem it duplicate content if I use the description tag text anywhere else in the on-page copy? Thanks, David
On-Page Optimization | | newstd1000 -
Blog.mysite.com or mysite.com/blog?
Hi, I'm just curious what the majority think of what's the best way to start a blog on your website for SEO benefits. Is it better to have it under a sub domain or a directory? Or does it even matter?
On-Page Optimization | | truckguy770 -
A / B Split testing
If you have developed a server-side A / B split testing tool. How do you avoid that Google will think you are doing cloaking. When a user enters www.xxxxx.com/xxxxxx/ he gets either version 1 or version 2 back from the server on the same url. If the user does not accept session cookies he will always get version 1.
On-Page Optimization | | Stener0 -
SEO Change/Version Control
Hi. Can anyone suggest apps that might be applied for SEO change/version control? I've tried using Excel and Word in the past but both fall short when dealing with multiple client sites. Nothing suitable pops up so far. Specifically I want to be able to log any on-page changes that might impact SEO for historical analysis and possible roll-back (manual) eg change date, page title, headings, url, anchor text, alt image txt, body copy etc. The ability to have one view that can be filtered in various ways including by client and by url would be ideal. Maybe this is something SEOmoz is considering for Pro campaign management? Surely there's demand... Thanks Andy
On-Page Optimization | | Bluesnapper0 -
Different names for Twitter/Facebook, and site?
Greetings, I want to optimize my site, www.atstrust.com. I know that posts to Facebook and Twitter help improve ranks. Does it matter though if my twitter/facebook sites have a different name than the domain I am optimizing? For example, my Facebook site is facebook.com/easyinspection. I assume that doesn't matter as long as the URLs on the site refer to my domain? Thanks! Eric
On-Page Optimization | | Ericc220