Constructing the perfect META Title - Ranking vs CTR vs Search Volume
-
Hello Mozzers!
I want to discuss the science behind the perfect META Title in terms of three factors:
1. Ranking
2. CTR
3. Search Volume
Hypothetical scenario: A furniture company "Boogie Beds" wants to optimise their META Title tag for their "Cane Beds" ecommerce webpage.
1. The keywords "Cane Beds' has a search volume of 10,000
2. The keywords " Cane Beds For Sale" has a search volume of 250
3. The keywords "Buy Cane Beds" has a search volume of 25
One of Boogie Beds SEO's suggests a META Title "Buy Cane Beds For Sale Online | Boogie Beds" to target and rank for all three keywords and capture long tail searches.
The other Boogie Bed SEO says no! The META Title should be "Cane Beds For Sale | Boogie Beds" to target the most important two competitive keywords and sacrifice the "Buy" keyword for the other two
Which SEO would you agree more with, considering
1. Ranking ability
2. Click through rates
3. Long tail search volume
4. Keyword dilution
Much appreciated!
MozAddict
-
No, not as long as it doesn't get overused. What Google doesn't want you doing is "Cane Beds | Cane Beds for sale | Buy Cane Beds"
If you are refering to character count, Keep it as compact as possible, while still being readable. Looks like you have already done the research on what is popular and ranking, now you just need to implement in a SEF and user friendly format. Think of it this way; what would you click on if you were looking for a cane bed? If you arent sure, draft a few examples, and show them to someone else for a few opinions.
-
What about keyword dilution. Would adding too many words dilute the strength of your main keyword "Cane Beds"?
-
lol, if only it were a real scenario, id be on it!
-
lol... That is a lot better than mine.
Try it. I bet you get great CTR.
Let us know how it works!
-
I have seen a lot of sites that tie in main keywords closer together not rank as well as ones that use them in a more natural fashion.
We have done our own tests with this, and while it can take a while to find the right combination, the payoff is well worth it. When you construct the title, make sure the content, description and keyword list are all consistent.
On of the formats we have found to be successful for titles is to use the main keyword as the leader, and then be more descriptive in the secondary part of the title.
Example: Cane Beds | Boogie Beds Shopping Online Store
Keep in mind this is only an example, and could be polished better than this. If possible, use subpages to rank for additional terms or keywords rather than packing them all into one page and hoping for the best.
-
hah
Cane Beds: Boogie all night
-
<title>Cane Beds: Sleep like a Rock! </title>
-
Thats a good point Tom. A new site might not be able to outrank a competitor due to PA or DA, but one could try and win more clicks through a compelling Title and description. An offer like free shipping would certainly be more compelling.
-
Hi Andy,
Thank you for your response. There is a fine line between targeting search volume and trying to remain relevant and sacrificing certain keywords for others. With this example, I wanted to see where the fine line lies for different SEO's.
Since the site I am optimising is a new site, there isnt enough data to test the variation. But it would be interesting to test the variations and see how search engines and users respond.
My feeling is that CTR for "Buy Cane Beds For Sale Online" would be lower due to its spammy feel, even if its search volume is higher.
It would be interesting to see the argument of a Mozzer that supports the other case
-
What else do you offer?
Do you do free shipping? Running any discounts?
I'd be much more inclined to click a title tag that says: "Buy Cane Beds - Free UK Shipping | Boogie Beds". Looks like it fits in the Moz Title Tool too.
You definitely want to get your primary keyword in there - it's good for SEO and for users. But after that, make it as compelling as possible that will drive people to click your ad, even if you're #3 instead of #1. Your title tag and meta description are your shop window - make sure you stand out.
-
Hi,
I certainly wouldn't go with the first SEO's recommendation as this is sacrificing usability and a title that reads well, for one that is only there to try and get as many keywords into it as possible.
There comes a point where you have to do a bit of a trade-off, and in this case, you trade a minor phrase "Buy Cane Beds" for a more highly searched one "Cane Beds For Sale".
This just doesn't read well at all... "Buy Cane Beds For Sale Online". Keyword stuffing at its finest.
Edit- Can I also point out that it doesn't really matter that the word "buy" isn't in there, as Google is pretty smart and knows how to apply the word "buy" to someone who is selling something.
If I do a search for the phrase "Buy cane beds", no-one in the top 10 has the word "buy" in their title.
-Andy
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
-
Ranking fluctuation
Has anybody got any ideas? I have a website that ranks quite well for an industry keyword, the site has a reasonable amount of authority. But the term is fluctuating between position 3 and position 9! It is on a beefy stable server. It is reasonably well optimised from both SEO and speed point of view. It is tracked using Moz RankTracker. I do realise that rankings fluctuate, but this is ridiculous!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman101 -
User intent and ranking
Hello, I was doing search to see who ranks on the keyword "bike tours" i noticed a lot of website rank without content "text". Is it because they fulfil the user intent with a search box where you can search by date and destination, trip type and price that google ranks those webpages ? It is the same for the keyword Paris bike tours https://www.fattiretours.com/paris How do they rank with so little content (once again is it because the fulfil the user intent ) Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
How to rank an ecommerce site for search terms starting with how where why
Hi guys, I just got a new SEO job for an e commerce store, the client is asking to rank the site for keywords like where to buy used phone, where to sell my used phone for for best rates and so, the question is how can i achieve that, can anyone help me with some concrete suggestion? Thanks in Advance,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mkhurramali0 -
Bing and Yahoo Ranks work, google ranks not happening
Bing and Yahoo Ranks work, google ranks not happening please help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Djdealeyo0 -
Rankings traffic percentages
Hi All, It seems that some keywords that are receiving a fairly high amount of monthly traffic such as 6000 hits are passing very little traffic to my website. for a few keywords recieving this amount of traffic my site ranks on page one. is there a breakdown of what percentage of traffic you should roughly get to your website depending on the rank for a certain keyword. example; position 1 send approximately % traffic to your site position 2 send approximately % traffic to your site etc thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wazza_19850 -
High Rankings, Search Volumes & Low CTR
I'm hitting a roadblock: I've successfully optimized our company website for 5 keyphrases, 3 of which we're ranking #1 in Google.com for, and for which monthly search volumes in the US are > 10,000. Yet, our CTR for those searches is below 1%!!! In plain words: people are looking for our industry, find us on as the first result, yet don't click on us! It's the first time I've experienced this in SEO and I'm wondering what is going on - and if anyone has suggestions. Any help is appreciated...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | quickmobile0 -
My homepage doesn't rank anymore. It's been replaced by irrelevant subpages which rank around 100-200 instead of top 5.
Hey guys, I think I got some kind of penalty for my homepage. I was in top5 for my keywords. Then a few days ago, my homepage stopped ranking for anything except searching for my domain name in Google. sitename.com/widget-reviews/ previously ranked #3 for "widget reviews"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wearetribe
but now....
sitename.com/widget-training-for-pet-cats/ is ranking #84 for widget reviews instead. Similarly across all my other keywords, irrelevant, wrong pages are ranking. Did I get some kind of penalty?0 -
Should product searches (on site searches) be noindex?
We have a large new site that is suffering from a sitewide panda like penalty. The site has 200k pages indexed by Google. Lots of category and sub category page content and about 25% of the product pages have unique content hand written (vs the other pages using copied content). So it seems our site is labeled as thin. I'm wondering about using noindex paramaters for the internal site search. We have a canonical tag on search results pointing to domain.com/search/ (client thought that would help) but I'm wondering if we need to just no index all the product search results. Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iAnalyst.com0