Unique page URLs and SEO titles

[keeot]

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...

[Travis_Bailey]

Have you tried tools such as pingdom, page speed insights or yslow? These can all give you a good idea where to start.

[Alex-Harford]

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/

[keeot]

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?

[keeot]

How can I make my page load faster.  I believe it's a bit slow...

[Alex-Harford]

"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.

[Asjad]

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

[Travis_Bailey]

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.