Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Should I use pipe in title tags for local seo?
-
Hi, I've created a bunch of landing pages for local areas, reading, windsor, slough etc
for the title tag I have for Windsor
Emergency Electrician Windsor - BrandName
should I be using a pipe in the tag to further help search engines learn/identify the location?
Emergency Electrician | Windsor - BrandName
Thank you
Kev
-
Kevin
From an SEO perspective Patrick and Alick are correct. It makes nominal if not no difference.
However from a CTR perspective the pipe is 97/100 times superior to the hyphen. Further you only generally have 512 pixels in the title before it truncates. ie if the title extends to over 513 pixels - often google reverses the title and places the brand first.
So every pixel matters and the pipe takes less space. Hence given the high impact of the title on SEO - and every character matters, to me it makes the pipe a winner on a few fronts.
Using your example:-
Emergency Electrician | Windsor - BrandName = 399 pixels
Emergency Electrician | Windsor | BrandName = 397 pixels
My conclusion is always use the pipe unless you are prepared to experiment and try and break a strong general rule. Plus you may be able to squeeze that extra letter in, or introduce proper Capitalization so it has a higher CTR.
Let me know if any queries on the above.
-
Hi Kevin,
Honestly these types of little things don't have much of a factor in SE algorithms.
Yes you can use it pipe, hyphen, comma . It may potentially impact the user experience and the Click-Through-Rate. I personally prefer to use pipe & hyphen.
Thanks
-
Hi there
According to Google, it doesn't really matter - both are separators. I would say whatever keywords / queries you use in the title are substantially more important and where your focus should be. Here's another tidbit from their resource:
"...consider including just your site name at the beginning or end of each page title, separated from the rest of the title with a delimiter such as a hyphen, colon, or pipe..."
I like the look of pipes personally, you'll see Moz uses pipes, and you'll see Google uses dashes. It's really upto you, just make sure your consistent with truthful titles and branding.
That being said, I would watch your duplicate content here and overoptimization for local search. I would focus on local SEO by listing areas you service (like a "Areas we Serve" page or something along those lines) with contact information and finding listings or citations in those general areas (maybe different industry related listings or chamber of commerce, etc). I wouldn't go too crazy with multiple service pages dedicated to multiple service areas because honestly, how much different are services in different areas that are worthy of their own content?
You can also look into service areas by Google My Business. Just be careful with too many local driven pages with same content. Stuff like this can look pretty spammy.
Hope this helps! Good 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
-
SEO Best Practice for Managing a Businesses NAP with Multiple Addresses
I have a client with multiple business addresses - 3 across 3 states, from an SEO perspective what would be the best approach for displaying a NAP on the website? So far I've read that its best: to get 3 GMB account to point to 3 location pages & use a local phone number as opposed to a 1300 number. Display all 3 locations in the footer, run of site
Local Website Optimization | | jasongmcmahon1 -
How to Do Local Keyword Research
I am familiar with how to do regular keyword research, finding opportunity based on competition, search volume, etc. For local search, do I go to all the trouble of finding hidden gems or just pick higher volume terms that have local intent. For instance: A search for "physical therapy" is a high volume term that Google thinks has local intent. If i pick a low volume national term, that has 11-50 avg searches per month, I have lower chances...and even less chance that someone is searching locally. What say ye? Nails
Local Website Optimization | | matt.nails0 -
Content writing for single entity business (The use of I)
Most of my clients consist of single entity law firms in which my clients repeatedly use the pronoun "I" to describe every service they provide. I have always preferred using the business name The Law Office of..." put lawyer name here". Is it ok to repetitively use the pronoun "I" in the content. To me it feels lack luster and childish not very professional, however I have a hard time convincing the lawyers of this. What are your thoughts? Can good content be written with the repetitive use of "I"? If not is the business name sufficient or maybe another pronoun? I will be showing responses to my clients if that is ok.
Local Website Optimization | | donsilvernail0 -
Can PPC harm SEO results, even if it's off-domain?
Here's the scenario. We're doing SEO for a national franchise business. We have over 60 location pages on the same domain, that we control. Another agency is doing PPC for the same business, except they're leading people to un-indexable landing pages off domain. Apparently they're also using location extensions for the businesses that have been set up improperly, at least according to the Account Strategists at Google that we work with. We're having a real issue with these businesses ranking in the multi-point markets (where they have multiple locations in a city). See, the client wants all their location landing pages to rank organically for geolocated service queries in those cities (we'll say the query is "fridge repair"). We're trying to tell them that the PPC is having a negative effect on our SEO efforts, even though there shouldn't be any correlation between the two. I still think the PPC should be focused on their on-domain location landing pages (and so does our Google rep), because it shows consistency of brand, etc. I'm getting a lot of pushback from the client and the other agency, of course. They say it shouldn't matter. Has anyone here run into this? Any ammo to offer up to convince the client that having us work at "cross-purposes" is a bad idea? Thanks so much for any advice!
Local Website Optimization | | Treefrog_SEO0 -
Does it matter how or what site you use to GeoTag your photos?
I found a site that was very easy for me to upload my pictures, add the coordinates, download it and put it on my site. The site is GeoImgr.com, but it's not nearly as popular as some of the other's out there. Does that matter? I'm under the impression that as long as the GPS coordinates show up in the XIF Viewer, then I've gotten whatever benefit (albeit slight) there is to get. Is that correct? Or is there something about tagging them from the more popular sites like Flickr or Panaramio? Thanks, Ruben
Local Website Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Same blog, multiple languages. Got SEO concerns.
Hi, My company runs a small blog in swedish. Most of the visitors are our customers/prospects. We will write about generic concepts regarding our business and the occasional company news story. However, I have quite a few ideas for articles that could be interesting to a lot of people, and I'm tempted to write those in english for better exposure. I would love it if that exposure could boost my companies authority. How should I go on about this? Can I somehow tell search engines that a certain part or page of the site is in another language? Should I translate our entire site to english and post the english post in a separate blog feed? Any insight is welcome. Thanks in advance!
Local Website Optimization | | Mest0 -
Yoast Local SEO Reviews/Would it work for me?
Hi everyone, I'm looking for some feedback on Yoast Local SEO, and if you think it'd work for our site. www.kempruge.com. Our site is a wordpress site, and there's nothing about it, off the top of my head, that makes me think it wouldn't work, but I've been wrong before. We do use All-In-One SEO, not the Yoast plugin, so I'm not sure if that's compatible.or would cause a problem? (The reason we use All-In-One and not Yoast is because that's what we had when I got here, and I'm worried what would happen if we switched). Also, we have three offices, and I need to be able to do local seo for all three. I know Yoast says it supports multiple offices, but I'd feel more comfortable if someone on here let me know from his/her experience that it did. Anything else you want to add about Yoast Local, I'm all ears! Thanks, Ruben
Local Website Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Does building multiple websites hurt you seo wise? Good or bad strategy?
HI,rategy. So I spoke to a local Colorado seo company and they suggested to find whatever keywords is the most searched under my GWT's and put .com behind it and build other sites for other keywords. I was curious about this type of strategy. Does this work? This seo guy said I could just get a DBA bank account and such for each domain name etc. I am not wanting to mislead anyone, but I am curious if for the sake of promoting other services, if creating other websites with partial and EMD's are worthwhile? Another issue I worry about is if I put my companies phone number, then next thing you know there is 3 or 4 sites that use that same phone number. To me this does not build trust with Google. But being I am learning, maybe this is a common strategy, or doomed from the start. Just curious what you think. Would you build other sites to try and rank for other services? Or keep one sites and maximize it? Thank you for your thoughts. I just do not want to pay $3000 per site if it will hurt not help.
Local Website Optimization | | Berner0