Include the company/domain name in page titles and urls?
-
I know this isn't something that I would use site-wide but I'm wondering if it helps or hurts me to use my company name (also my domain name) in pages below the homepage.
As an example, let's say I'm Home Depot. In the category pages off the homepage should I use Page names and urls like Home and Garden Supplies or Home and Garden Supplies at Home Depot? Or does it hurt me to reuse my company/domain name on multiple pages?
-
I think that if you have an important, impressive, well-known brand that you can boost your SERP click through rate and conversion rate by including your brand in the title. However, for a relatively unknown brand like mine there might be more valuable things to include in the limited title tag space.
These might include:
- free shipping
- kick ass price
- free ebook
- fast delivery
- biggest selection
- free beer
- a couple of extra keywords to pull traffic
All of these can elicit clicks and put the buyer in the mood to do what I want him to do when he gets on my site.
I am not out to compete with Microsoft on branding. I am out to get visitors onto my site and covert them - so I believe that in my situation the title tag space can be more wisely spent.
-
My standard procedure is to have clients include the company name on any "About" related pages, as well as "Contact" related pages, "press", or "media" related pages. It's important to do this so as to ensure the best chance of outranking other sites that have information on the company. I also don't believe it's necessary to do this with the domain name, since the domain name is already in every internal and external link.
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
-
Having country in page url, good idea or bad idea?
Lets say i sell louisville hockey sticks if i have a page url as louisville-hockey-sticks-canada is this better than louisville-hockey-sticks I have a .CA domain
On-Page Optimization | | garmatinc0 -
Q&A Page Titles
Hello All! I am currently updating page titles and metadata descriptions for a websites Q&A section and have run in to a problem while updating page titles. Since it is the Q&A section of the website, all of the page titles are around 100 characters and some are up to 200 characters long. Here is an example: Page Title: My child is working below grade level in math. Do I have to purchase the curriculum from the grade below as well? The problem is that this is obviously too long for a SERP to display however I know it is best practice to have matching titles on both the title tag and page title. My question is what hurts SEO value more: the title tag and title of the page not matching or having a very long title displayed on the SERP?
On-Page Optimization | | Myles921 -
Branding vs. Keyword Optimization for Company title.
I have a new SEO client that I am working on putting together an optimization strategy and have come across something that has me second guessing. Reach out to Moz Community... The client is a doctor who runs a tattoo removal clinic out of his office. Technically they are two separate businesses: doctors office and tattoo removal clinic. The tattoo removal clinic is my client. They have an independent website where they generate leads. The website is not the brand name. It is [city]tattooremoval.com. The logo on the site, heading, footer all reflect the web URL. The actual brand name for the company is used in all the directory listings, facebook page, google+, basically everywhere else on the internet. When drafting up new meta titles, putting together content, everything really, the website URL has primary keywords included making it way more convenient to use that. However I'm not sure how it will look to the search engines about having everything pointing to the site be one company title and when you get to the site not see the company title in the logo or titles and such. The company name is just down in the corner somewhere on the page. Anyone with any experience to a similar issue? On one hand I think I'm over thinking it, not having the brand name on the home page title tag shouldn't be a huge deal if the website delivers value to the customer. On the other hand I don't see a lot of companies that do this online in general (especially with larger brands), although research shows a many of companies in this niche using the [city] + keyword (or vise vera).
On-Page Optimization | | bricegump0 -
Penalty for Changing Home Page Title Tags
Hey Mozzers I'm certain of the answer to this question, however I wanted to get some input from the experts in Moz-land to hopefully provide some additional perspective. I recently disagree with a client's assertion that there is some penalty Google levels for changing the title tags of your home page. Now, I understand changing the title tags can influence serp rankings, however, is anyone aware of some penalty Google levels for simply changing the title tags? Most of what I've read and experienced has people changing them all the time without some phantom penalty. It seems to me a problem of correlation = causality, in that people often attribute a drop to an action that may not have actually been the cause. Anyway, if you have any particular insight on this top I would appreciate it greatly. thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | BrandLabs0 -
Duplicate Page Titles? I thought this was good structure....
I have several warnings for duplicate page title.... I thought that I had good structure, but I guess I am doing something wrong. On my website (http://www.farnorthkennel.com), I am getting duplicate page errors for pages like this: http://www.farnorthkennel.com/german-shepherd-puppies-the-girls/hazel
On-Page Optimization | | Joshlaska
and
http://www.farnorthkennel.com/german-shepherd-puppies-the-girls/emerald I thought that this sort of structure was a good idea since the end page is different. Should each page be set up right after the original domain name? I'm new at this....0 -
Recommended Length for a Companies "Services" Page Content
I am in the process of revamping my company's website. I do WordPress Development, Design, and SEO consulting, and i'm running into a sort of writer's block when wring my services pages. For example, my page on WordPress Security has 388 words of "body" content, and I feel from a content perspective, it serves it's purpose, but from an SEO perspective it is considered a little light. I really don't know what the SOP is here, because, I've literally seen competitors sites have a page on "WordPress Security" rank on the first page of Google with absolutely no content, an empty page. I see a lot of the Moz posts are huge, thosands of words, and I know they perform very well (and they also have ton's of links / PR...etc) and I just want to do the right thing. I know sites like http://www.seerinteractive.com/our-services/search-engine-optimization have relatively short info pages as well. Thanks in advance for your feedback. Zachary Russell President, ProTech Internet Group
On-Page Optimization | | Zachary_Russell0 -
Should one page with markers or six separate pages?
Hi - I'm working on a site that was set up with 6 bios on one page, with markers jumping to each person's name. I was thinking about separating those into 6 different pages, but not sure if that's the right thing to do. Advice about keeping the bios on one page vs splitting them up? (Am I more likely to rank for those peoples' names if I have a unique page, or is the one page url with each different marker in it, just as good?) Ranking well for those names isn't a huge goal of the site, but it would be nice to make the choice that would help with that rank. Thanks for your input Emma
On-Page Optimization | | emmas0 -
How to go after a domain name when the whois info is incorrect.
I found a domain that I'd really like to buy. It's currently active but has just a single image on it (that links to an affiliate product). I'd like to see if the owner would like to sell it to me. But, when I emailed the address that's listed with the whois info it bounced back. Any ideas on how else I can buy this domain?
On-Page Optimization | | MarieHaynes0