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.
Unique page URLs and SEO titles
-
www.heartwavemedia.com / Wordpress / All in One SEO pack
I understand Google values unique titles and content but I'm unclear as to the difference between changing the page url slug and the seo title.
For example:
I have an about page with the url "www.heartwavemedia.com/about" and the SEO title San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | About
I've noticed some of my competitors using url structures more like "www.competitor.com/san-francisco-video-production-about"
Would it be wise to follow their lead? Will my landing page rank higher if each subsequent page uses similar keyword packed, long tail url? Or is that considered black hat?
If advisable, would a url structure that includes "san-francisco-video-production-_____" be seen as being to similar even if it varies by one word at the end?
Furthermore, will I be penalized for using similar SEO descriptions ie. "San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Portfolio" and San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | Contact" or is the difference of one word "portfolio" and "contact" sufficient to read as unique?
Finally...am I making any sense? Any and all thoughts appreciated...
-
Have you tried tools such as pingdom, page speed insights or yslow? These can all give you a good idea where to start.
-
I'd more than likely go for something different on each page. Make sure you're describing the page content accurately in the title.
You don't need to include your brand in any of the titles. Some people believe it's better to have the brand name, some don't. Amazon for example - they're a strong, well known brand - so it makes sense to include the brand name as it can encourage click throughs from Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). For a business like yours I wouldn't think it'd make a big difference either way. As you're targeting local customers, it could result in extra exposure for your brand name if you include it, though the longer a title tag the less emphasis is given to each keyword in the SERPs - so that's a small reason not to include it. If you go back to what I said about thinking about the user, then you'd have the brand name on the homepage and about page for definite, but other pages - it probably doesn't matter so much. As you noticed on another thread, sometimes Google will add your brand name anyway! You could also consider how people's bookmarks display, but again I'll say - don't worry about this too much!
In terms of your question about speed, there are a few resources you can put your URLs into that will give you feedback and recommendations. Here are 2:
tools.pingdom.com/fpt/
http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ -
Thanks, Alex. Yeah, my instinct was that the keyword packed urls were spammy so I'll keep them simple.
I feel like I'm beginning to wrap my head around this. So to clarify further...
If I'm trying to get my home page to rank for "San Francisco Video Production" should I not include that phrase at all in my title tags or is it still advisable providing it varies slightly and clearly relates the intended purpose of the page?
For example:
San Francisco Video Production Portfolio | Heartwave Media
or would it make more sense to let that term be exclusive to the home page and do something more like:
Corporate and Commercial Video Portfolio | Heartwave Media
Right now I have:
San Francisco Video Production | Portfolio | Heartwave Media
PS:
Do I even need to include my brand in the titles outside the landing page?
-
How can I make my page load faster. I believe it's a bit slow...
-
"I have an about page with the url "www.heartwavemedia.com/about" and the SEO title San Francisco Video Production | Heartwave Media | About"
I'd say the URL you have already is perfect. For the "SEO title" (title tag) I'd go with "About Heartwave Media" - the unique part of the title tag should be at the start.
Think about what is best for the human visitors to your website, and not the search engine crawlers. People expect an "about" url to be at www.example.com/about or www.example.com/aboutus - it's also memorable and easier to type in. I've always said this is the best way, and Google is getting smarter at ranking content that is useful for searchers: http://moz.com/blog/be-the-result-that-google-wants-to-rank
If every URL on your page had "san-francisco-video-production-" in it, it's not user-friendly, and it looks spammy, so to Google it's definitely going to look spammy, either now or at some point in the future.
Also be aware of keyword cannibilisation. You want search engines to know your website is about video production, but you don't want to confuse them over which page they should rank highest. This is an old article but still relevant: http://moz.com/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization It's fine to mention "video production" and variations of that theme throughout your website, but be aware of the cannibilisation issue. If you think it's most important to rank for "San Francisco Video Production" then that should be your homepage title, arguably with your brand name at the end.
-
Hey Keith,
Let's discuss things one by one
1. Title Tags
- Too long! It must be around 60 Characters with spaces (Some Suggests 70 as well). So, try to fix it
- Be unique for every page. Like for About Page, you can use "About | San Francisco's Leading Video Production Company". For Services "Video Production Services San Francisco". Search more keywords for your business (Google Keywords Tool)
- Use your brand as blog title. Using keyword is not very recommended as it leads to increase length and over -optimization
2. Meta Description
- Unique description of around 160 words with proper optimization of keywords is ideal
- Your Meta descriptions are not optimized at moment. Please optimize them
3. URL Structure
- Optimized URL is not all about placing keywords in URL
- Deliver authority to your pages and they will start to rank
I hop this will help!
Regards
-
I've already crawled the site. Quite a few titles appear to be rather long. Most of the titles use San Francisco Video Production.
Only include the keyword in the title if that's what the page is about. Having a keyword in the slug is a good idea, again just don't go overboard. One page should suffice, but that alone won't guarantee the first page (No one and nothing guarantees first page results).
You have to look at domain age as well. Does one of your competitors have a couple of years on you? Do they have ten years on you? That's a big thing.
Where are you're competitors getting links? Are these links good, will they drive traffic? That's another concern.
I like to put page speed/usability in the first order, but many people say it's second order. Does your site load well/fast? What can you do to reduce page load speed?
These are some really basic things you have to consider. If you've answered them properly, your situation should improve.
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
-
What is the best strategy to SEO Discontinued Products on Ecommerce Sites?
RebelsMarket.com is a marketplace for alternative fashion. We have hundreds of sellers who have listed thousands of products. Over 90% of the items do not generate any sales; and about 40% of the products have been on the website for over 3+ years. We want to cleanup the catalog and remove all the old listings that older than 2years that do not generate any sales. What is the best practice for removing thousands of listings an Ecommerce site? do we 404 these products and show similar items? Your help and thoughts is much appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JimJ3 -
Page title optimisation - Does suffix keywords matters?
Hi Moz community, We can see in many of the page titles; "brand & keyword" go after every topic like..... "best tiles for kitchen | vertigo tiles". Do Google count this suffix as any other word in page title or give low preference just because it has been repeated across every single page? What if the "keyword" is repeated with topic and brand name as well. I mean which one of the below 2 page titles gonna workout better in correlation with keyword and website authority ? best tiles for kitchen | vertigo tiles best tiles for kitchen | vertigo Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz0 -
Should I submit a sitemap for a site with dynamic pages?
I have a coupon website (http://couponeasy.com)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | shopperlocal_DM
Being a coupon website, my content is always keeps changing (as new coupons are added and expired deals are removed) automatically. I wish to create a sitemap but I realised that there is not much point in creating a sitemap for all pages as they will be removed sooner or later and/or are canonical. I have about 8-9 pages which are static and hence I can include them in sitemap. Now the question is.... If I create the sitemap for these 9 pages and submit it to google webmaster, will the google crawlers stop indexing other pages? NOTE: I need to create the sitemap for getting expanded sitelinks. http://couponeasy.com/0 -
Best URL structure for SEO for Malaysian/Singapore site on .com.au domain
Hi there I know ideally i need a .my or .sg domain, however i dont have time to do this in the interim so what would be the best way to host Malaysian content on a www.domainname.com.au website? www.domainname.com.au/en-MY
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | IsaCleanse
www.domainname.com.au/MY
domainname.com.au/malaysia
malaysia.domainname.com.au
my.domainname.com.au Im assuming this cant make the .com.au site look spammy but thought I'd ask just to be safe? Thanks in advance! 🙂0 -
How to 301 redirect from old domain and their pages to new domain and pages?
Hi i am a real newbie to this and i hope for a guide on how to do this. I seen a few moz post and is quiet confusing hopefully somebody able to explain it in layman terms to me. I would like to 301 redirect this way, both website contain the same niche. oldwebsite.com > newwebsite.com and also its pages..... oldwebsite.com/test >newwebsite.com/test So my question here is i would like to host my old domain and its pages in my new website hosting in order to redirect to my new domain and its pages how do i do that? would my previous page link overwrite my new page link? or it add on the juice link? Do i need to host the whole old domain website into my new hosting in order to redirect the old pages? really confusing here, thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | andzon0 -
Is it wrong to have the same page represented twice in the Nav?
Hi Mozzers, I have a client that have 3 pages represented twice in the Nav. There are not duplicates since they land with the same URL. It seems odd to have this situation but I guess it make sense for my client to have those represented twice since these pages could fall into multiple categories? Is it a bad practice for SEO or is it a waste to have those in the NAV? Should I require to eliminate the extras? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Ever seen a black hat SEO hack this sneaky?
A friend pointed out to me that a University site had been hacked and used to gain top Google rankings. But it was cloaked so that most users wouldn't notice the hack. Only Googlebot and visitors from Google SERPs for the spam keywords would see a hacked version. See http://www.rypmarketing.com/blog/122-how-hackers-gained-an-easy-1-google-ranking-using-a-university-website.whtml (my blog) for screenshot and specifics. I've dealt with hacks before, but nothing this evil and sneaky. Ever seen anything like this? This is not our client, but was just curious if others had seen a hack like this before.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AdamThompson0