Is it OK to include name of your town to the title tag or H1 tag on a blog to enhance local search results
-
I recently attended a webinar by ETNA Interactive on local search SEO. The presenter recommended including the name of your town in the title of the blog to increase local search SEO.
Is this OK? Ive always been concerned that it is such an obvious attempt to rank locally that Google would consider it "spammy" ? black hat, "sketchy" or otherwise manipulative.
Have the rules changed? Is it OK to do?
Brooke
-
Thank you very much
-
Thank you very much
-
As The Chris Menke has stated, there's no problem with including the city and state in your meta data or on-page markup. It's actually an advantage of sorts.
There are nearly one dozen cities named Dallas in the US. Say you were located in Dallas, TX. What would separate you from Dallas, OR? There would be citations, if you're doing what you need to do for a local business. But I've found that on-page is getting a bit more weight, and it's increasing.
Not sure yet? You can verify a Google My Business listing via Google Webmaster Tools for an indeterminate amount of business categories. If that's not a sign that on-page is gaining weight in the local search scene - I don't know what is.
In fact, the Google Local team has stated that the business's domain is the strongest factor. Would you not like to possibly give them a few more signals, easily? They are the donkey, you have the carrot.
But I would suppose your question arises from an objection to writing; "Profession/Service City, State". There are ways you can do that, and it will still look alright. In fact, wouldn't you want someone to know that they came to the right place immediately, even though it sounds generic?
People don't have time. You have to show them they came to the right place immediately. Title and header markup are excellent ways to do so.
-
Brooke,
There's nothing wrong with including place names in your title, in fact, it is a best practice in many instances. Be strategic about doing so, though. Adding the name of your city to every blog post will seem spammy (but won't get you penalized) and probably isn't necessary. Typically, if your services are location specific, you should include your place name in the title, description, and body. It will usually help with organic ranking and click through on product/services pages when searchers are looking locally for your offerings.
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
-
Brand name in title?
Hi all, I have noticed that a lot of companies put there brand/company name at the end of their page title. To me, that seems like a huge sacrifice of your limited 60 characters. Wouldn't it be better to use characters for words that people might actually be searching for?
On-Page Optimization | | RaoulWB0 -
Search results meta error?
Hello I am new here. When I search my brand name "amazingbeautyhair" in google it shows like this,I have meta description,why it shows like this?how to fix please? sdWx6
On-Page Optimization | | yitong0 -
Meta description not showing in search results
Hi, One of my client's websites is not showing its Meta descriptions in search results. I've looked at the html and have noticed that they are using ' rather than " around the description tag (see below) <meta name="<a class="attribute-value">description</a>" content='<a class="attribute-value">Student Accommodation in Portsmouth or Southampton - Fully Furnished Studios, Close to the Universities. All Inclusive Rent with WiFi. Going Fast, Book Now!</a>' /> Is this likely to be the problem, or am I missing something very obvious? The website is http://www.unilife.co.uk/ Many thanks, Ben
On-Page Optimization | | bendyman0 -
Results clustered in blue below the main result
There are multiple results that appear in blue below the main result for a query from a particular domain. For example, if I search 'mobile phones online' on google.co.uk, the result field from www.dialaphone.co.uk shows me multiple results clustered in blue - 'HTC One Silver', 'Samsung', 'iPhone5S', 'Free Gifts'. I am trying to understand what these are, and why these show up. Ideally, I would like the results for my domain to show up in a similar fashion, and am wondering if there is something special that I would need to do in this regard. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | rjchugh0 -
Title Tag: Phrases vs. Keywords Separated by "|"
Hello, One of my client's old sites has all category titles of the form (for example) running shoes | running shoe | walking shoes | walking shoe including many that perform well with over 60 characters. I'm in the process of rewriting the titles into something like Running and Walking Shoes, A quality shoe at OurShoes.com The reason I'm rewriting them is for future google penalties, and to look better to possible guest post opportunities. Also to look better in the SERPS But the old style is performing very well. What are the real pros and cons of each? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW0 -
IPAD AND IPHONE RESULTS
I noticed that the google search results on ipad and iphone have completely different than the searches done by computers. I have sites that rank well on desktops, are usually read in ipad and iphone but would not dream of appearing in their searches. Someone has already done some study on this subject? Know what the parameters and differences in rank in mobiles?
On-Page Optimization | | j0a0vargas0 -
Google indexing Internal Search Results
Greeting, Currently I have noticed that Google is starting to index our internal search page results. Should I block those pages in our robot txt file or have you ever heard of any websites that actually gained traffic or rank by letting Google index those pages? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Tonyd230