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.
In local SEO, how important is it to include city, state, and state abbreviation in doctitle?
-
I'm trying to balance local geographic keywords with product keywords. I appreciate the feedback from the group!
Michael
-
Hi Michael,
You're welcome. Regarding the use of brand names in title tags, we've had some good discussions of this here in the forum over the years (https://moz.com/community/q/include-site-name-in-page-titles-or-not)
You'll see opinions differ. My personal feeling is that, for a local business, the brand name should definitely be in the title tags on the home, about, contact and reviews page + city landing pages for multi-location businesses. Then, it should be included where you can on other pages (product/service for example). I don't think it's essential for it to be on every single page, but for the sake of branding, I like making room for it where possible. I hope you'll read that discussion I linked to, and you might want to research this further. Great title tags are so important! Worth the research and effort. To that end, I think you'll enjoy this Whiteboard Friday:
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for the detailed response! One follow up question. I see you included the company's name (ex - Progressive) in the tag. How important is it to include the company in the title tag? Many times I'm fighting to save space/characters. Would it be harmful to leave the company name out in order to include product keywords and geographic qualifiers?
Thanks again,
Michael
-
Hi Michael,
Great, thanks for the further details. Okay, so typically, for a single location local business, you're going to have a homepage, about page, contact page, testimonials page and set of pages defining the services the business offers. Multi-location businesses are more complex, but with just a single location, you'll want to be sure that the complete NAP of the business is on every page of the website, either in the masthead or footer. Be sure it's also the first thing on the Contact Us page, too.
While this provides good, strong signals to people and search engines about the locale of the business, it remains a good practice to optimize the title tags with your geo-terms as well. So, for example, let's say your insurance agency (Progressive) is in Oakland and offers fire, health, life, home and renters insurance. You'll have a page for each of these services, and the title tags might read like:
The fire insurance Oakland, CA residents trust most | Progressive
Oakland's most affordable health insurance | Progressive
etc.
Your tags will be better than that, but my point is that there will be variety of language, and that sometimes you may use both city and state names, and sometimes only the city. I don't believe state abbreviations are essential, with one very important exception: if the name of the city you live in occurs in numerous states, definitely do try to work in the state abbreviation when you can. For example, there are apparently 30+ cities called "Franklin" in the U.S. I continuously see Google assuming when I search for something in Fairfax, CA, that I'm actually searching for something in Fairfax, VA. It's very annoying. This tells me that state modifiers are important signals to Google, and so while it may not be necessary to always specify them, if your clients are in cities with analogs, I'd play it safe by including state abbreviations in as many title tags as I could. But, if the client is in San Francisco, it's a safer bet that Google (and searchers) are going to get where you are if you do business there, without the addition of CA to your title tags.
Hope this helps, and please let me know if you have any further questions.
-
Thanks Miriam.
Yes, I’m asking about including the city, state, and/or state abbreviation on home or interior pages for local SEO.
I say local because I’m working on an insurance agent and a lawyer website. I’m trying to balance the needs to include both a geographic qualifier and product/service keywords in the <title>to optimize for local searches and map packs.</p> <p>These are both single location businesses with a physical address.</p> <p>Thanks again!</p> <p>Michael</p></title>
-
Hi Michael!
Would you be able to provide a bit more context here so the community can fine-tune its suggestions? Are you asking about including these terms in your title tag for a local business website? If so, which pages of the site? What is the goal of the page you're optimizing? What is the business model (single location local business, multi-location local business, virtual business?). The more detail you can provide, the better of an answer you should receive here. Thanks!
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
-
Research on industries that are most competitive for SEO?
I am trying to see if there is a reputable / research-backed source that can show which industries are most competitive for search engine optimization. In particularly, I'd be interested in reports / research related to the residential real estate industry, which I believe based on anecdotal experience to be extremely competitive.
Local Website Optimization | | Kevin_P3 -
How to Do Local Keyword Research
I am familiar with how to do regular keyword research, finding opportunity based on competition, search volume, etc. For local search, do I go to all the trouble of finding hidden gems or just pick higher volume terms that have local intent. For instance: A search for "physical therapy" is a high volume term that Google thinks has local intent. If i pick a low volume national term, that has 11-50 avg searches per month, I have lower chances...and even less chance that someone is searching locally. What say ye? Nails
Local Website Optimization | | matt.nails0 -
Impact of .us vs .com on SEO rankings?
Our website is hosted on www.discovered.us. I have 2 questions: 1: we have had regular feedback a .us domain is negative in SEO and in conversion (customers don't like it). We are thinking of changing domain to: www.dscvrd.com.
Local Website Optimization | | Discovered
Any insights on the impact on our rankings (if any) if we do this? 2: we are focusing our SEO global / USA first but conversions in UK are better. We currently do not have multi-language SEO setup. What would the impact be of implementing www.discovered.co.uk on SEO in UK? Thanks! Gijsbert0 -
Can I block blexhn30.webmeup.com. Or does it have anything to do with my Moz Local
I am getting alot of hits from blexhn30.webmeup.com. My web host says it could be a web service. Is this part of moz local activity? Otherwise I want to block it. Have you seen this before??
Local Website Optimization | | stephenfishman0 -
Local Service pages guide?
There are a lots of Local landing pages guide on the internet. Is there any guide for Local service pages? How to create them, what to include?
Local Website Optimization | | Michael.Leonard0 -
Subdomain versus Subfolder for Local SEO
Hello Moz World, I'm wanting to know the best practices for utilizing a subdomain versus a subfolder for multi location businesses, i.e. miami.example.com vs. example.com/miami; I would think that that utilizing the subdomain would make more sense for a national organization with many differing locations, while a subfolder would make more sense for a smaller more nearby locations. I wanted to know if anyone has any a/b examples or when it should go one way or another? Thank you, Kristin Miller
Local Website Optimization | | Red_Spot_Interactive0 -
Yoast Local SEO Reviews/Would it work for me?
Hi everyone, I'm looking for some feedback on Yoast Local SEO, and if you think it'd work for our site. www.kempruge.com. Our site is a wordpress site, and there's nothing about it, off the top of my head, that makes me think it wouldn't work, but I've been wrong before. We do use All-In-One SEO, not the Yoast plugin, so I'm not sure if that's compatible.or would cause a problem? (The reason we use All-In-One and not Yoast is because that's what we had when I got here, and I'm worried what would happen if we switched). Also, we have three offices, and I need to be able to do local seo for all three. I know Yoast says it supports multiple offices, but I'd feel more comfortable if someone on here let me know from his/her experience that it did. Anything else you want to add about Yoast Local, I'm all ears! Thanks, Ruben
Local Website Optimization | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
SEO: .com vs .org vs .travel Domain
Hi there, I am new to MOZ Q&A and first of all I appreciate all the folks here that share their expertise and make everyone understand 'the WWW' a bit better. My question: I have been developing a 'travel guide' site for a city in the U.S. and now its time to choose the right domain name. I put a strong focus on SEO in terms of coding, site performance as well as content and to round things up I'd like to register the _best _domain name in terms of SEO. Let's suppose the city is Atlanta. I have found the following domain names that are available and I was wondering whether you guys could give me some inside on which domain name would perform best. discoveratlanta.org
Local Website Optimization | | kinimod
atlantaguide.org
atlanta.travel
atlantamag.com Looking at the Google Adwords Keyword tool the term that reaches the highest search queries is obviously "Atlanta" itself. Sites that are already ranking high are atlanta.com and atlanta.gov. So basically I am wondering whether I should aim for a new TLD like atlanta.travel or rather go with a .org domain. I had a look around and it seems that .org domains generally work well for city guides (at least a lot of such sites use .org domains). However, I have also seen a major US city that uses .travel and ranks first. On the other hand in New York, nycgo.com ranks well. Is it safe to assume that from the domain names I mentioned it really doesn't matter which one I use since it wouldn't significantly affect my ranking (good or bad)? Or would you still choose one above the other? What do you generally thing about .travel domain names (especially since they are far more expensive then the rest)? I really appreciate your response to my question! Best,
kinimod0