Which keyword for title
-
I'm trying to figure out what to use for my title text. It's for a structural steel fabrication company. Adwords has the average monthly searches for "structural steel" and "steel fabrication" identical at 5,400. It has "structural steel fabrication" at 390 which I get that since its longer and a little more specific will have less searches. My question is if I make the title "structural steel fabrication" does google just see it as 1 big keyword or will it rank for "structural steel" and/or "steel fabrication"? What would any of you go with here? All 3 keyword strings make sense for the person seeing the title.
Thanks for any advice you can give,
Clay
-
Hi Clay,
Welcome to Moz! Have you checked out the Beginner's Guide to SEO as well as our other guides at http://moz.com/learn/seo? I totally understand if you've instead been enjoying the weather! I see you're in AG/SLO. I grew up in Santa Maria, and really am only now (after relocating to Seattle) appreciating the weather we had there in the winter.
-
Could you give a little more background about how the SEs would view that as just one keyword? I'm looking at a search for SEO in Google right now, and on the front page there are results including one with SEO Training in the title tag, yet it's showing up on the first page for SEO by itself.
For the construction example, the number of searches isn't necessarily the number of visits to a page. On my site, I show up fairly low for just "warship" but fairly high for "model warship combat". Way more people search for "warship", but I'm so far down in the results for that keyword that I get more visits from "model warship combat" even though there's far less search volume. Like you said, the longer-tail keywords are often the ones that do convert better.
-
Thanks for the response Alex. I'm really starting to get a grasp on this stuff. Appreciate it!
-
Thanks a lot Chris! That really helps me out. Being a developer who's boss told him to "figure out SEO" this stuff gets pretty confusing sometimes. I appreciate it.
-
As mentioned above just setting the title to the most popular keyword won't guarantee you rank for that keyword. You're better off creating a page that uses and supports both keywords, or target a good keyword for your brand. Follow up by creating sub pages or sub content that support the 2 keywords you've mentioned. The goal isn't to just use the keyword in a few places, it's to create a whole map of content that supports a single keyword.
-
Clay,
As far as the words used in the title, those that are closest together and closest to the beginning of title will be given more weight but there is no clear delineation of what's a keyword and what's not a keyword in the title. Rather, think of your title as a lens through which Google sees the rest of the words on your page.
When the copy on the page contains the same words in the same order as what's found in the title, such combinations will be seen by google as highly relevant to the same combination used in a search query. In your example, if your tile contains only "steel fabrication" and your page copy contains only "steel fabrication" then the page would be far more relevant to the "steel fabrication" search query than it would be to the "structural steel fabrication" search query.
If your title used "steel fabrication" towards the beginning and "structural" towards the end and you sprinkled the terms "structural" and "steel fabrication" throughout your page copy, the page would still be highly relevant to the search query "steel fabrication", while increasing in relevance to the "structural steel fabrication" query.
If your title began with "structural steel fabrication" and you used that combination of words throughout your copy, the page would probably become more relevant to that query than to "steel fabrication" but could possibly still rank for both.
That said, there is a fundamental difference between the concepts of "structural steel fabrication" and "structural steel " (and "steel fabrication" for that matter) and Google is recognizing that the way each is used in context gives big clues to the page concepts. Thus, more and more, Goolge knows that just because the words "steel fabrication" are used next to each other on a page, if structural is used in front of them, then the page may be considered irrelevant to "structural steel fabrication".
So, if your page is about "structural steel", use your copy to clearly this product or service. If the page is about "steel fabrication" use the page copy to clearly describe that service to your visitors. If the page is about "structural steel fabrication", be clear about that. Doing so will pay off more and more, as Google continues to get better at providing search results and as visitor expectations of landing pages get higher.
-
Search engines will see "Structural Steel Fabricator" as one keyword, not as all combinations of words therein.
When it comes to short vs long-tail keywords, the main question is about whether or not the loss of searches is made up for by specificity in regard to longer keywords. For example: let's say your business is home construction. In 1 day, 1,000 people search "construction" on Google, whereas 200 people search "home construction". While "construction" gets 5x the visits to your site, it's assumed that those who visit from searching "home construction" will be more likely interested in your service because they were more specific and therefore, your service is more tailored to their search.
Odds are that less people will generally search "home construction", but there's also less competition and the leads are more likely to become customers. So, I suggest comparing your conversion rates, the amount of visitors for both, and the competition for each keyword.
-
Hi Clay. Google will be able to parse your page meaning not only from the Title Text but also the semantic linking to and from your page, so "structural steel fabrication" should be a fine choice. Something that could help you test the efficacy of your title tags though would be to start up a small paid campaign (AdWords) around the company brand and then split test the various titles you come up with amongst people searching specifically for the company brand. Then you'll have data on which title tends to beat out the other from a CTR stand point.
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
-
Long tail keyword research
Hi guys, what is the best practice to find the long tail keywords, like Google Instant Suggestion, people also search, or moz keyword explorer I have experienced a lot in MOZ pro Keyword Planner, but now I want to know easiest way to find long tail keywords for my website olehana Makeup, still I'm using just 3 keyword that I already ranked in Google SERP top 3 positions now I also want that some long tail keywords also gets ranked.
Keyword Research | | daimon670 -
Keyword Ranking Research Question
Hi Mozzers,This is probably a nooby question, but I was wondering how you guys end up deciding if a Keyword is too hard to rank for? Also vice versa, when do you decide that a keyword is too low volume to rank for so you try to rank for a harder keyword? Eg.
Keyword Research | | steve45058
Deciding that ranking for "Dell Computers" is too hard and then deciding to rank for "Dell Small Business Computers" Post-question: Do indirectly rank for Dell Computers if you try to rank for Dell Small Business Computers? If so, how much? Also, how many words inbetween Dell & Computers would there have to be to stop indirectly ranking for Dell Computers?1 -
Using roman numbers in Page title
Hi, We are working on a site with lots of Acts and Rules (mostly legal stuff). The Acts are differentiated by Roman numbers like rule-VIII and Form-XX etc. I want to know if I should keep the page title same or change them to English numericals like rule-8 and Form-20 Thanks
Keyword Research | | sayeed0 -
Replacing Metas and Keywords
How often we need to replace our meta titles, meta descriptions and keywords so that we are able to find which one works and which does not. Can we make some schedule like on monthly or quarterly basis. What are the best practices in this regard?
Keyword Research | | Sequelmed0 -
What does it mean when two keywords in Google's Keyword Research Tool have exactly the same amount of searches?
The two keywords are [publicity] and [product placement] (both in exact search - not broad) and have 22,200 searches each. Is it purely coincidental or are the two keywords kind of related in Google's eyes and that's why we're seeing the same amount of searches for each?
Keyword Research | | davhad0 -
Why will my site not rank for this keyword?
My site http://www.electric-heatingcompany.co.uk/ performs quite well for most of my keywords and gets ok traffic. But for "electric radiators" it just isn't ranking? I was thinking about redoing the landing page for it? Can anyone offer some insight as to what else I could do? Here is the current electric radiators page http://www.electric-heatingcompany.co.uk/index.php/electric-radiators-2/ Thanks, Laura
Keyword Research | | lauratagdigital0 -
Image Description & Image Title
Our site allows us to update via WYSIWYG editor. When adding photos to our pages it gives us the option to add (Image Description) & (Image Title). When optimizing a single page how should we properly be filling these in? Should Image title be keyword we are trying to rank for? If so, should we be following proper keyword density ratio to avoid keyword stuffing? Thank you
Keyword Research | | TP_Marketing0 -
Please help with SEO keyword research
Hi Moz community, I would like to request your collective wisdom. I'm new to SEO and putting together an SEO research and strategy document for the employment service I work for. Have solid skills in Google Adwords and have ran a campaign over the last two years with excellent results. But this SEO thing is a whole new world! That's why who better to turn to than the leading community for SEO professionals? 🙂 Any support, advice, tips would be most welcomed appreciated. It's an employment service and I've got a list of keywords. For example, here are some of the action words I thought could be useful: <colgroup><col width="215"> <col width="91"> <col width="65"></colgroup> [find staff] 0.79 73 [find employees] 0.97 73 [looking for staff] 0.94 58 [looking for staff] 0.94 58 [staff wanted] 0.62 58 [looking for employees] 0.94 46 [look for work] 0.77 36 [looking for workers] 0.93 36 [find workers] 0.91 36 [employee search] 0.72 28 [staff search] 0.37 28 [find an employee] 0.79 22 [search for employees] 0.71 12 [find a worker] 0.66 12 [how to find employees] 0.71 12 My questions: Where to from here? If this was a Google Adwords campaign I would place the words in, create ad copy and test response. But with SEO, are these words useful? Can you target all of these words with SEO - or am I better finding words with higher volume? How many words should I be looking to target? For example, am I only trying to find the 5 or 10 highest volume words, or is it important to target lots of words with SEO? Is it just one set of keywords per page, or can I target all the above keywords on one page? I'm a bit lost. Thanks in advance for your consideration.
Keyword Research | | jasonlewisdiiigy0