Can I get your input on keyword usage in the title tag
-
Hello fellow mozzers!
I've been struggling with my title tag and would like to get your opinion.
We provide IT services in the Los Angeles area. I've been doing keyword research for the past week and found about 400 keywords from various sources. I then looked at my top 5 competitors on Google and analyzed their homepage title tags, the most common keywords that they use in their title tags are:
IT Support Los Angeles
Computer Support Los Angeles
Network Consulting Los Angeles
Network Support Los Angeles
IT Services Los AngelesSince it is recommended to have your title tag under 70 characters I've compiled the following title tag for my home page:
IT Services, Network Consulting, IT and Network Support in Los Angeles
which is exactly 70 characters, however my company name is an additional 9 characters, I think it would be wise to include in the title tag of the home page however I can't decide if I should exceed the limit by including the company name to the title tag or should I remove something from the title tag and then add the company name?
1. What do you guys think, is that a good title tag to use as is?
2. Should I add the company name without removing any keywords or remove a keyword?
3. I'm trying to target local traffic since I can't compete with the big dogs yet, so I want to be in the SERPs when someone searches IT Services Los Angeles, IT Support Los Angeles, etc... Do I need to add Los Angeles after each keyword, or I can use a single instance of Los Angeles like in the example title tag that I have?
4. For the other remaining 400+/- keywords I want to use some of them to create static pages and some for blog posts, is that the way to go?
Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!!!
Thank you!!!
-
Understood, thanks!
-
Yes, broad is not as measurable as [exact]. Especially when you are targeting local keywords.
-
Hi Donnie,
The 320 volume is the local search exact match, however the broad match on IT Services Los Angeles is much higher, should I focus on the exact match instead of the broad match when choosing keywords?
-
It's best to build your site for your users and not try to manipulate the search engines. I would go for one keyword per page two max. Placing two keywords in a title may look funny in most cases. In your case "IT Support Los Angeles" has the highest local search volume 320 out of the keywords you mentioned.
Adding spammy footer links does not help your users and most likely is not helping your competitors (it may have in the past) rather putting their sites in danger.
I understand that you want to rank for multipul locations, which can be done without spamming. For a good internal linking structure watch this video: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/smarter-internal-linking-whiteboard-friday
-
Hello Donnie,
Thank you for such a quick answer!
I did another search on keyword difficulty tool IT Support Los Angeles vs IT Services Los Angeles and IT Services Los Angeles gets much more traffic, take a look:
Would it better to use something like this:
IT Services and Support in Los Angeles by Company name?
Also in your expert opinion:
How many keywords or keyword phrases do you recommend including in the titles?
Most of my competitors have a bunch of locations/cities that they service in their footers, like IT Support Los Angeles, IT Support Sherman Oaks, IT Support Encino, etc... as well as pointing to the same page (which from what I understand is duplicate content) and too many footer links. However 4 out 5 use them and I don't think they've been penalyzed as they've been holding the top 5 spots for some time now. Should I try the same tactic or avoid it and hoping that by not using these techniques it should help in outranking them?
Thanks again!
-
I like to start my keyword research by examining the search volume and competitive organic rates on SEOmoz.
http://pro.seomoz.org/tools/keyword-difficulty (pro members only)
| IT Services Los Angeles | 54 | 165,000 | 165,000 | 170 | 170 | Full Analysis |
| Los Angeles IT Services | 60 | unavailable | unavailable | unavailable | unavailable | Full Analysis |
| IT Support Los Angeles | 53 | 22,200 | 22,200 | 320 | 320 | Full Analysis |
| Los Angeles IT Support | 53 | 22,200 | 22,200 | 91 | 110 | Full Analysis |out of your selected keywords I would use "IT Support Los Angeles" as your main keyword (highest local exact search volume with lower competition level). Use this with diversity in you title, description, H1, and at least 2 times in your body one regular and one bold or italic.
Here's a good title for your site: "IT Support Los Angeles by [Company name]"
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
-
Relevant but not-relevant keywords impact to SEO
Hello, I would like to know if the selection of individual keywords(that are not primary, secondary or tertiary) are important for SEO regardless of the relevancy to the page topic. I am wondering how much of a contribution a non-P1/P2/P3 can make in terms of SEO? For example it is a product page and I have built my content with P1,P2&P3 based only on the product and its properties itself. Do you think that a content gap for the page could be the production process of that product? So even if it is a product and its properties page, I can add 2 sentences about the production, so that I can drive more traffic by including these 2 informative sentences.? EXAMPLE:
Keyword Research | | Siir
So lets' say my topic is "hair types" (P1) and my subtopics are "Straight," "wavy," and "curly"(P2s) which I used as subtitles. But throughout the page, I am planning to add some relevant but not-directly-relevant keywords here and there since they have high metrics and volumes. For example a potential sentence I can add: "innovative hair products these days can offer amazing results for the desired hair types". It is not specifically about "hair types" but I am using the keyword "innovative hair products" (good metrics keyword) which may help for the traffic... Another potential not-so-direct sentence can be: "For all hair types, the hair damages are common: heat damage, chemical damage and mechanical damage". Would adding this extra sentence where I am not specifically talking about "hair types" (my topic) but "hair damages" and damage examples (off-topic high metric keywords) help me to drive traffic to my website? And how much of an impact would it be?0 -
Can I use my keyword in brackets '( )'
I need to sort my product keywords in the countries: (UK) (USA) (Global) etc. What does putting my keyword into brackets do - does it negatively affect my SEO?
Keyword Research | | crocman0 -
Coworker and I see totally different keyword volumes on same paid keyword planner account
My coworker and I are both connected to the same company's paid keyword planner account but are using our own individual google accounts to log in. When I look up the keyword "joint bank account" I get a search volume of 9,900, while she gets a search volume of 2,900. Does anyone know why this might be? Do we know which might be more accurate? This doesn't seem to be connected to Google lumping semantic variations together. I've seen it happen way before that update. It's hindering our headline pitching since the volume she sees does not meet our minimum search threshold. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Laira
Keyword Research | | CTI1 -
Best Practices For Keyword Optimization
Hey currently building a new page on a clients site in the weight loss niche. The keywords he wants to rank for are the following: <colgroup><col width="198"> <col width="64"></colgroup>
Keyword Research | | monster99
| [fat burning foods] | 49500 |
| [foods that burn fat] | 22200 |
| [fat burning foods for women] | 2900 |
| [belly fat burning foods] | 2900 |
| [best fat burning foods] | 1900 |
| [fat burning foods for men] | 1900 |
| [list of fat burning foods] | 720 | His site is new, but he has excellent content production capabilities. My question is, in terms of optimizing the page (the title and url) for these keywords would you focus on the highest volume keyword. In this case the highest volume keyword is "fat burning foods" however is the most competitive and dominated by high domain authority sites (50+ vs. clients site which is around 30). Thus its highly unlikely he will rank for that keyword for quite a while. But for the keyword term "best fat burning foods" the competition is alot less in terms of DA and other factors but volume is smaller with 1900 hits a month. So would you optimize the page (the title and url) for "best fat burning food" or would you optimize thinking about the long-term and eventually ranking the keyword "fat burning foods". My thinking would be to optimize the page for "fat burning foods". And that the benefits of optimizing (url and title) for "best fat burning foods" isn't ideal for the long-run. Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. Cheers, Mark0 -
Should i change title tags?
I want to change all of the title tags on my website by adding a couple of more keywords (not keyword stuffing) but our previous media company chose words that were not aas relevant as ones I found. However I was warned this is a bad idea, it will make traffic drop and if it works we will only see about 5% increase to pages. Please advise. Should I change them and hwo should I do it? One by one slowly while changing content to match or all at once?
Keyword Research | | slipnot0 -
Newbie has various questions about keywords
Hi All - Im just learning, would appreciate some clarification on how keywords work. Specifically: For a phrase keyword, does order matter? E.g. is 'Bridging loans UK' the same keyword as 'UK bridging loans'? Again in a phrase, do the keywords need to be adjacent? So if I had a an H1 tag on my page which was 'We provide Briding loans for the entire UK', would this be considered a match for the keyword phrase 'Bridging loans uk' ? As I understand it, optimising your site for a certain keyword involves 2 things at a basic level:a) Including that keyword on your site, and b) Getting relevant inbound links from other sites with that keyword as the anchor text. Is this correct? Are there other large scale factors? What is the balance between those 2 (or more) main factors? Which is most important?
Keyword Research | | nebbisch0 -
Two for the price of one: Can I rank for multiple keywords when only targeting one keyword?
If I'm optimizing for a specific keyword, is it accurate to assume that by ranking for that specific keyword that I will also be able to rank for similar or root keywords merely by ranking for the original keyword? For example, if I'm targeting 'free online bucket list' is it safe to assume that I will also be able to inadvertently rank for 'online bucket list' or 'free bucket list'? Can I assure clients of this? Or if I'm targeting 'Colorado grocery store' should I also naturally rank for 'grocery store Colorado' and not need to make both of these my targeted keywords?
Keyword Research | | derrickkuhn0