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 -
Hi - How do you get rid of duplicate content that was accidentally created on a tag url? For example, when I published a new article, the content was duplicated on: /posts/tag/lead-generation/
the original article was created with: /posts/shippers-looking-for-freight-brokers/ How can I fix this so a new URL is not created every time I add a tag to a new posting?
On-Page Optimization | | treetopgrowthstrategy0 -
Recommended Schema for a Collection/Category page?
Hi There! Taking on a small project up updating and adding in Schema to a clients site; a previous developer half put in data vocabulary. In my planning I was wondering if their would be a best schema type for category page of products - or a collection of products? Any ideas and experience? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | paul-bold0 -
301 redirects / clean urls (2)
hello again! 1st i want to thank robert, istvan and everyone else for the great answers to my last question. i guess i should have been a bit more specific with the questionas i am still a bit unclear about a couple of things. i forgot to mention that we actually moved the site several months back and redirected all the "category" pages, but, i wasnt aware that the "product" pages were never redirecte! so my next questions are: at this point is it even worth redirecting those old product pages? if so, should we use the IP address as shown below or the domain as shown below ...i am guessing at the IP address. http://72.3.181.97/catalog/CanineCushionDogCouchBeds.aspx
On-Page Optimization | | k9byron
http://www.k9electronics.com/catalog/CanineCushionDogCouchBeds.aspx also, our old site was never deleted from the server. our ranking / sales dropped off by about 50% when the new site went live so im guessing this can be directly contributed to the products not being redirected / duplicate content from the 2 sites? im also guessing i need to find a new developer ..can i get a vote on that? 😉 <colgroup><col width="856"></colgroup>
| http://72.3.181.97/catalog/CanineCushionDogCouchBeds.aspx |0 -
Why does http://www.southernhearth.com rank so well for patio furniture and outdoor furniture?
I was looking at the competitiveness of ranking for the keywords "patio furniture" & "outdoor furniture" and was shocked to see www.southernhearth.com ranking so well. While I am just getting into the research, I was unable to see anything that would justify it's rank. What are your thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | Mattbyo0 -
Mobile vs Website Duplicate Data / Meta
SeoMoz is reporting duplicate content, title tags, and other meta information and seems to be showing that my mobile site (located on m.website.com) is a duplicate of website.com I was figuring I could add "Mobile SiteName" to the title to avoid the duplicate title but am a little confused as to how to approach the duplicate content side of it
On-Page Optimization | | Check_City0 -
Has anyone with a high number of home page tiles been effected by the panda/farmer update?
One of the sites I'm working on seems to have dropped a few spots in rankings. It has numerous home page tiles, but they are not really advertising; just links to different sections on the site. Does anyone think that might be a factor in the rankings drop?
On-Page Optimization | | J.Marie0 -
What reasons exist to use noindex / robots.txt?
Hi everyone. I realise this may appear to be a bit of an obtuse question, but that's only because it is an obtuse question. What I'm after is a cataloguing of opinion - what reasons have SEOs had to implement noindex or add pages to their robots.txt on the sites they manage?
On-Page Optimization | | digitalstream0