Title tag

[seoanalytics]

Hello,

To rank on China bike tour. Is it ok to write in the title "Explore china on a bike tour - My company name bike tours"

Or do I need to absolutely "China bike tour" in the title tag ?

Thank you,

[Jeff_Baker]

You should be good, but it's always something that you can A/B test without compromising the integrity of the content!

[seoanalytics]

Thank you Jeff for your detailed reply. It is good to hear that google can read in between the line.

So if I understand well, I shouldn't worry. The user intent of China bike tour is the same as Explore China on a bike tour (at least to me). Hopefully it is the same to google

[Jeff_Baker]

It doesn't HAVE to be an exact match title tag in order to generate favorable rankings. Semantic search has come a long way in interpreting the meaning of content, rather than the exact keywords you feed it.

In the past, Google only knew about a page what you told it. This is no longer the case, in that it can read in between the lines and understand the intent of a search, and match it up with content that will sufficiently answer that intent.

However, the system isn't perfect, and as you can see in this article, there is a slight correlation between exact match keyword usage in title tags and position. I also wrote an article that confirms the importance and continued relevance of on-page optimization.

If I can get an edge, I'll take it. I still use exact match (unless it feels forced or otherwise compromises the integrity of the content).