Looking for opinions on structuring meta title tags/page title/menu title/H1
-
Hi everyone I am hoping a few of you can share your opinions. I have been having conversations (okay, healthy debates) about how to write/structure meta title tag and how to compliment them with the H1, page title, menu name. To help explain the thought processes I will use a pretend keyword. How about "screwdriver".
Case: (I made this up) we are redesigning a website for a construction tools manufacturing company (pretend name: ABC Tools) targeting OEMs who are interested in purchasing large quantities of tools. The product categories (to become main menu items) are Screwdrivers, Nails, Drills, and Hammers. (bear with me .... this is just an example I am making up on the fly)
K. Circling back to screwdrivers - let's say we have one landing page (a primary category page and in the main menu) listing products and great details about screwdrivers. Focus keywords are screwdriver manufacturer, screwdriver supplier, construction screwdrivers
Below are questions being debated. If you are willing ... how would you address these questions? And, can you explain WHY?
QUESTION ONE: How would you structure the meta title tag (feel free to write one of your own)
- Screwdriver Manufacturer - Construction Screwdriver | ABC Tools
- ABC Tools - US-based Screwdriver Manufacturer Supplier Near You
- High-Quality Screwdrivers for Construction with ABC Tools
QUESTION TWO:
- how would you write the H1 on the page? Would it match the meta tag? OR, would you write something different using the primary keyword?
QUESTION THREE
- Remembering this is not a blog post ... it is a primary landing page linked to the main navigation. What would the menu title be? (remember the product categories above are how the main menu items are bucketed)
- Screwdrivers
- Screwdriver Manufacturer
Typically in WordPress, the H1 and the menu title is auto-populated using the page title (not the title tag)... So, if we use Screwdrivers as the page title but we want the H1 to match the meta title tag, would we manually change the H1? Or, have the page title and title tag match, but manually change the menu item?
-
Hi
Never going to disagree with Rand. The first analysis is the actual SERP you want to rank on. So audit the SERP. What are the Title tags that are ranking? What is the content that is working? So start there on your Title tag. That should make it an easy decision.
WordPress only auto populates if you want, can set as per your requirements.
Confused on menu title.. is that the navigation?
-
Thank you for the response! In an attempt to better explain my question I believe I overcomplicated it ...
Your response is helpful, but also triggered more questions in addition to the ones I had.
Here are questions I am still working on addressing:
-
Your title tag example struck another question for me. Currently, we use the same structure which would be summarized by "Keyword | keyword version 2 | Brand/Company Name". Based on my understanding of Rand's recent Whiteboard Friday: https://moz.com/blog/one-hour-guide-to-seo-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization this would not be considered best practice anymore. Rather, your title would be written to say Fast Car Insurance Quotes online with Example... It's not just keywords and brand, it's compelling, etc. Here is another supporting article: https://moz.com/blog/title-tag-hacks-whiteboard-friday Thoughts on that?
-
Based on almost all guides findable and the fact that WordPress auto-populates the H1 with the page title, does the page title need (or should) to match the meta title tag?
-
Does the menu name need to match the page title? In your case - the menu name itself (assuming in the main menu) does it need to include the longtail version. In other words - how much impact does the menu title itself have on SEO? If any? And does it need to match the page title/H1?
-
-
Hi
I am an unclear but will frame from car insurance and hope it assists. As am not sure on which customer queries to target in your scenario - dangerous to make a suggestion without a better understanding of your business model and products highest ROI. The customer queries should be data driven, ie volume. If that is the goal. We use semrush. moz and keyword planner and a few tools.
Lets say chasing car insurance, this got a client to No 1. This is a general answer..
The url we recommend be
www.example.com/car-insurance/
The Title tag we would recommend be Car Insurance | Compare Car Insurance Quotes | Example
If not a comparison site - Car Insurance | Car Insurance Quotes | Example
Now for the H1.
It should be different from the URL and Title but contextual..
So lets say Car Insurance Quote or Car Insurance Australia
The meta description should on our view the targeted keyword once and be about clickability.. not sure if that gets you there, but hope it helps.
Go get em.
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 dropped after changing title tag
I recently changed my company's site homepage title tag to make it start with our target keyword. The page was originally at page #7 or #8 and dropped to page #17 directly after I changed the page title. Is this normal? Is it's a temporary drop or should I change it back to the previous title.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ForumOne0 -
Links / Top Pages by Page Authority ==> pages shouldnt be there
I checked my site links and top pages by page authority. What i have found i dont understand, because the first 5-10 pages did not exist!! Should know that we launched a new site and rebuilt the static pages so there are a lot of new pages, and of course we deleted some old ones. I refreshed the sitemap.xml (these pages are not in there) and upload it in GWT. Why those old pages appear under the links menu at top pages by page authority?? How can i get rid off them? thx, Endre
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Neckermann0 -
How long does it take for google to update my meta tag des?
Hi Guys: I have 3 top level domains, basically - I can see that my website is ranking in another country (USA) for my keyword - however the domain name that is showing up for the USA search is correct, but the meta tag description is incorrect, this meta tag description is for the NZ domain - not the USA domain. I have updated the hreflang tags, when i submit my new sitemap how long does it take google to update the meta tag description? new
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
Javascript to fetch page title for every webpage, is it good?
We have a zend framework that is complex to program if you ask me, and since we have 20k+ pages that we need to get proper titles to and meta descriptions, i need to ask if we use Javascript to handle page titles (basically the previously programming team had NOT set page titles at all) and i need to get proper page titles from a h1 tag within the page. current course of action which we can easily implement is fetch page title from that h1 tag being used throughout all pages with the help of javascript, But this does makes it difficult for engines to actually read what's the page title? since its being fetched with javascript code that we have put in, though i had doubts, is anyone one of you have simiilar situation before? if yes i need some help! Update: I tried the JavaScript way and here is what it looks like http://islamicencyclopedia.org/public/index/hadith/id/1/book_id/106 i know the fact that google won't read JavaScript like the way we have done with the website, But i need help on "How we can work around this issue" Knowing we don't have other options.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SmartStartMediacom0 -
2 page titles, 1 url in Google SERPS: WTF!?!?
Hey guys, Hope everybody is having a good day. Today i came across something i have never seen in the serps before that i would like to share and getting feedback on. When i search for 'woonverzekering' on google.nl #1 is: **Url: ** www.independer.nl/woonverzekering/intro.aspx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PrizeWize
**page titel: **Woonverzekering - Independer.nl When i search for 'woonhuisverzekering' on google.nl #1 is: **Url: ** www.independer.nl/woonverzekering/intro.aspx
page titel: Woonhuisverzekering? Vergelijk alle soorten woonverzekeringen - Independer.nl So basically 2 different queries show the same url with 2 different page titles in the serps. The only 'weird' thing i could find was a nobreakspace in the page title code: Woonhuisverzekering? Vergelijk alle soorten woonverzekeringen - Independer.nl I'm i missing something completely obvious here? Is this a commonly used technique. Is the page title getting chopped up because of ? What are they doing to get 2 page title results on 1 url?0 -
How Long Does it Take for Rel Canonical to De-Index / Re-Index a Page?
Hi Mozzers, We have 2 e-commerce websites, Website A and Website B, sharing thousands of pages with duplicate product descriptions. Currently only the product pages on Website B are indexing, and we want Website A indexed instead. We added the rel canonical tag on each of Website B's product pages with a link towards the matching product on Page A. How long until Website B gets de-indexed and Website A gets indexed instead? Did we add the rel canonical tag correctly? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Any penalty for having rel=canonical tags on every page?
For some reason every webpage of our website (www.nathosp.com) has a rel=canonical tag. I'm not sure why the previous SEO manager did this, but we don't have any duplicate content that would require a canonical tag. Should I remove these tags? And if so, what's the advantage - or disadvantage of leaving them in place? Thank you in advance for your help. -Josh Fulfer
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mhans1 -
Meta keywords vs tags
On a blog from an SEO perspective how do you choose keywords to use in the "meta keyword tag" vs. "post tags"? Will it be different based on the search volume/competition of the keywords targeted?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | saravanans0