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.
Can I use my keyword in brackets '( )'
-
I need to sort my product keywords in the countries: (UK) (USA) (Global) etc.
What does putting my keyword into brackets do - does it negatively affect my SEO?
-
Nicholas is correct. Brackets, (r) symbols (TM) and full stops, Pipes (like these) | and commas don't affect SEO. I have extensively tested my titles in the SERPS for CTR and found that using Pipes as delimiters is higher converting than full stops or commas. But it all depends on what looks nice. For example, we have a great number one positions with the following titles: Remarkable Braces Liverpool | From £46.50pcm | Free Whitening It's the stars that draw attention to the free whitening with your braces Veneers Cost in 2018 | Veneers Price Comparison by Cosmetic Dentists This used to be 2017 and I recently updated it to 2018, Google loves dates because users want up to date information. Don't just update the date though without making actual additions and changes to the page though. This is possibly going to negatively affect things. Smileworks Liverpool | Affordable Private Dentist Liverpool Simple pipe looks clean and emphasises our affordability. 6 Month Smiles Liverpool | Unbiased Reviews & Price Comparison Comparisons of price is a great title to use and the & symbol is fine here so it doesn't go over the word limit for a title tag Fastbraces Liverpool | Orthodontist Q&A, safety, prices and reviews Q&A is fine here too. If you google a term you can see whether google considers it to mean the same thing by it beingf shown in bold in the meta descriptions in other results. So for example 6 month smiles is the same in the eyes of google as six-month-smiles and compound hyphens, brackets and all that good stuff will only serve to emphasise and increase CTR which is huge. Get testing. It takes a couple of days for a title tag to change but you can get meaningful data from search console for your click through rates (CTR) Be creative! There is a John Mueller Q&A on the topic and that's where I learned that google doesn't care or it takes these things into account if you use them naturally and in a way that is nice to look at in the SERP or that stands out. Hope this helps
Good luck testing.
-
I don't imagine it will negatively affect SEO, and in fact, brackets and parentheses have been shown to increase CTR when in a Meta Title Tag. If you implement this I would only do it a few pages to test it, and keep track of the rankings and analytics for those pages specifically. If rankings and Analytics are the same or better, you should be good to implement it on Product Pages.
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
-
What travel keywords to choose? 'flight' or 'airplane ticket'?
I did some keyword research in order to do some onsite optimization on a travel industry-related website. I found 2 kinds of relevant keywords: 'flight'-related keywords (e.g.: flight chicago dallas) 'airplane ticket'-related keywords (e.g.: airplane ticket chicago dallas) Competition is the same on both but the first ones have more volume. So I'm really tempted to go with the 'flight'-related keywords. However the 'airplane ticket'-related keywords also have an interested volume so how should I do my onsite optimization. So each one of this solution do you think is the best: creating one page targeting the 'flight' and 'airplane tickets'-related keywords knowing isn't a good practice targeting two different keywords ? creating two different pages (one targeting 'flight' and the other one targeting 'airplane tickets') but it isn't very relevant for visitors since both pages are proposing the same offer? also it might have some duplicate content issue. creating one page targeting 'flight' and forget about 'airplane tickets' and missing some opportunities ? creating one page targeting 'flight' and adding some 'airplane tickets' keywords in content and hoping to get some 'airplane tickets' keywords traffic ? Thank you in advance for your feedback and sharing your experience in the same kind of issue.
Keyword Research | | patricksiki0 -
Setting Up a Keyword Matrix
Greetings MOZ community!! My real estate web site contains about 500 pages with perhaps 70 pages targeting low volume, somewhat valuable but not very competitive keywords. Three to four URLs target very competitive terms. The following terms are among the most valuable: New York City office space,
Keyword Research | | Kingalan1
New York office space,
Manhattan office space,
NYC office space Such variants as: Office space in New York City,
Office space in New York,
Office space in Manhattan,
Office space in NYC
ETCETERA convert really well How would I match different terms to different URLs? For example I have just re-written the following two critical URLs: www.nyc-officespace-leader.com (home page)
http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/office-space (product page) Would it make sense to use "Manhattan office space" and variants on the home page while excluding "New York City office space" variants? At the same time I would use "New York City office space" variants on the "office-space" product page while excluding all mention of "Manhattan office space". Is this logical and does it conform to SEO best practices? For the "NYC office space" terms I would add them to http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings. This URL has almost no text but a strong potential to rent because of a high number of incoming internal links. Is this approach sensible? In general what measures should I take to prevent URLs from competing for the same keywords? Also, is there a software package or tools that I can use to come up with keyword variants? As a non SEO professional, can I create my own keyword matrix or is this really in the realm of a professional SEO consultant? Thanks, Alan0 -
Which keywords are sending traffic to my site?
I want to know Which keywords are sending traffic to my site? What type of strategies behind this ?
Keyword Research | | surabhi60 -
The same keyword on multiple pages, but not all (combined with other relevant keywords) for products.
Hi Guys, I want to get an opinion/advice on this. My client has a site that have all their products (I am working on expanding the product descriptions, benefits and how they differ from each other) listed and I just want to know if I can use the term 'gear oil' for example on multiple pages as one of the keywords. The product range (among others like transmission fluid and anti-freeze) is gear oil (with the different types of gear oils available described) and I can't really change what the product is. I do have different variations (such as gear lubricant, automotive gear lubricant, car gear oil etc.) but will it do damage if I use the same keyword (like gear oil) on multiple pages (along with another relevant keyword that does not involve the words gear oil)? Any help on this will be greatly appreciated!
Keyword Research | | annabel.schoeman0 -
Keyword ranking by word order
If we have a keyword with 2 words like "SSL Audit". Will it rank in the same position the other way "Audit SSL" ?
Keyword Research | | Cistrust.com0 -
How to get search volume in Google's keyword planner
I want to know the search volume for ~1000 keywords that I discovered via ubersuggest. Yesterday I could have done this in 5 minutes, but I can't seem to get it to work in the new Google tool and would love some advice. When I either upload or copy and paste my list into the tool I can get it to give me search ideas with volume, but it has all the keywords I am uploading as 0 search volume (when I know that is not true and some of them have thousands of searches). I've tried "entering keywords to see how they perform" and also "searching for keyword ideas" (the second just because the first didn't try after my 10 tries) Any ideas about what I am doing wrong?
Keyword Research | | theLotter
Or is this a bug other people have been experiencing?0 -
Bulk keyword competition tool?
The SEOmoz Keyword Difficulty tool is great, but the 5 keyword limit is too small. I need a tool that will allow checking the organic competition level of 100's of keywords (to help in selecting blog topics). Anyone know of such a tool?
Keyword Research | | AdamThompson1 -
What is the ideal keyword difficulty percentage?
I am trying to establish my best keywords using the keyword difficulty tool. So if I want to come up with the best keywords, should I use the ones that come in at 50%??
Keyword Research | | mmookie0