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.
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
-
When Google rewrites a title tag, do you get the SEO impact for the original version?
Let's say you're writing a homepage title tag like this: KEYWORD | BRAND and Google rewrites it as BRAND | KEYWORD From Moz and best practices, we believe that keywords closer to the beginning of a title tag may have more impact on search rankings. So, when Google rewrites the title tag, do you get the impact you would have made with the keyword being closer to the front? Or, does Google give you the impact you would have received with the keyword being at the end?
On-Page Optimization | | Kevin_P0 -
Is using a H1 tag in a logo image bad for SEO?
We have brand logos on certain pages that have H1 tags in them - the H1 text being the brand's name, as this is what we'd want the title of the page to be. The logos are at the top of the page instead of a written title. But is this the best option for SEO? Do search engines value H1 tags in images as highly as a standard H1 tag?Would it be better for SEO to add an alt tag to the logo and add a separate H1 tag on the page that's also the name of the brand?
On-Page Optimization | | DVLighting0 -
Include Site Name in Page Titles or not
i would like to ask if it is a good practice or not to Include Site Name in Page Titles. My page is not selling products it is about plagiarism checker tool. i will give one example in one page we are writing about the plagiarism types so the page title is plagiarism types and then is the site name. what is the better practice? Keep it or not? thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | anavasis3 -
Anchor Tag around a Div
Just Curious if this is an SEO No-No! I have set up the box to do some cool SEO transitions but am curious if I am loosing on a signifigant amount of internal linking considering anchor text or if Google recognizes the h2 as anchor text. Thanks. [ Article Title Article Synopsis Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.](internal-page.html)
On-Page Optimization | | Vspeed0 -
Exact keyword match for meta title and h1 what is best practice?
How exact should my meta titles and H1 one be compare to the keyword you wish to rank on. Eksample. When I do a research with google AdWords the keyword tool shows me: 260 monthly searches for house for rent Hua Hin 140 monthly searches for Hua Hin house for rent 70 monthly searches for House for rent in Hua Hin The first two includes the exact same 5 words while the last one includes the stopword "in". That google have different search volumens for these very smilair search queries tells me that small differences matters. So how does that effect the way i shoulf write my: a)meta titles b)H1 I feel I get better sentences often by reordering the keywords etc. “Top tips on how to rent house in Hua Hin” Instead of “Top tips if you want a house for rent in Hua Hin” Do you use stop words like “in” hua hin. (only used in 25% of the searches queries)? Also would it matter if i write a plural form of a keyword instead of a singular etc propeties and sted of property? My goal is to write easy to read and unique content but i feel i can make exact matches if required with out compromising to much.
On-Page Optimization | | nm19770 -
How will it effect SEO to have multiple h1 tags on a page?
I have a client who recieved this advice from his marketing consultant: "If there are multiple h1 tags on a page, this can confuse Google and it may have a negative impact on the keyword rankings. If you could ask your web developer to go in and remove the h1 tags on the header images that would be helpful. This way it will be easier for Google to index your site and will help your keyword rankings." How will it effect SEO to have multiple h1 tags on a page?
On-Page Optimization | | GRIP-SEO0 -
How to separate your - keywords - and | Brand name in the Title Tag
I have traditionally used hyphens (-) and vertical bars (|) to separate out keywords/brands in title tags. A client has asked if other characters will work such as tilde (~), apersat (@), forward slash (/) etc. Are there any special characters we should steer clear of?
On-Page Optimization | | Switch_Digital0 -
Are H1 tags important or influential?
We are in the process of correcting our site in hopes that Google will rank us higher in the SERP. We have many pages that have multiple H1 tags or no H1 tag at all. How important is the H1 tag? Will it help us increase our ranking on Google? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | WebRiverGroup0