Importance - meta title keyword
-
HI
I want to find out how important people think it is to have the keyword as the first word in the meta title?
Is this something that would even make a difference?
-
As others have said, maybe, maybe not.
In my vertical, if "Macy's coupons" is the keyword, then everyone in the field puts that first in the title tag because the conventional wisdom is that it's the optimal placement.
The problem with that strategy is that everyone's title tags are nearly indistinguishable from one another. Literally nothing in the column stands out from anything else. Blah.
When we added a dynamic count to our titles, eg. "7 Macy's Coupons", and wrote them so they remained keyword rich while also reading more naturally, we observed two important things:
1. Our rankings did not change at all.
2. CTR went up.The working hypothesis is that the number helps us stand out and the natural structure is easier to read and digest. It's optimized for human eyeballs just as much as it's optimized for ranking.
That's just one example, of course, and I'm sure others can line up with examples where the slightest change to a title tag knocked them back to page 30. I'd recommend testing it out.
-
Hi Becky,
My answer: Yes It makes a difference.
As Laura said, it's debatable.
Personally I think that the meta title is a perfect place to place some keywords. Of course, don't be abusive.Every time that im in keyword optimization debate, I ask everybody to be concious whether placing any keyword in some places, such as meta title, headings or meta descriptions have real meaning in the context.
I've seen many articles that have wrong semantics, just for having put the keyword there.Be logical, be reasonible and think if you where a visitor (or the google bot): Would you consider apropiate in that text, the keyword?
Hope it helps.
GR. -
Hi Becky,
I have tried it both ways with positive results. I prefer the Title to "flow" and not appear as KW stuffed. From day 1, my mentor taught me "The Click is more important than the Rank" but we all know we must have rank to get click...
I always try to write Titles, Desc and content in a reader friendly informative manner, which sometimes means going against popular recommendations.
Hope this helps
KJr
-
That's certainly debatable, and I'm interested to see what others say as well. For a long time, the best practice has been to put the most important keywords toward the beginning of the title tag. However, in a recent Google Webmaster Tools hangout (17:38), John Mueller said just shuffling keywords around probably doesn't affect rankings. He says that it should essentially be the same if it's still the same keywords.
Now, you have to take what John Mueller says with a grain of salt, and he certainly wasn't definitive in his answer. My understanding of his answer is that the order of keywords in the title tag only makes a difference if all other factors are equal, but I'd like to see someone test that theory.
The fact that Google frequently changes the title tag based on the query suggests that the order of keywords is less important than it once was.
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
-
Keyword research
Hi, When you do keyword research and my terms is SEO for example. Do I need in the content to have the word "SEO" by itself and then a related keyword like "SEO tools" as 2 separate keywords or can I have "SEO tools" only and will this be counted as 2 separate keyword. The 1 st one will be "SEO" and the other one will be "SEO tools." Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
How to measure traffic for a keyword
Sitting in Country A I want to see how much traffic a particular keyword receives in Country B. Whats the best way to do it? Also, will the search results differ if I am analyzing the above sitting in Country A viz-a-viz Country B. In other words, will the IP of the country I am making the search from play a role in the results?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KS__0 -
Parallax and Title Tags
I've noticed an issue with our site, which uses parallax on multiple pages. Here is an example: If you search for About SQL Sentry, you get the correct title tag and description If you search for SQL Sentry Careers (which is on the about us page) it appears that Google has made up a title tag and description for it. Is there any way to force a separate title tag for a part of a parallax page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sika220 -
Duplicate meta descriptions
Hi All Does having quite a few Duplicate meta descriptions hurt SEO. I am worried that I have too many and thinking this could be the reason for my recent drop in search visibility. Thanks in Advance. Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andy-Halliday0 -
Keyword Research: How best to target keywords without using a region as part of the search query.
When doing keyword research and trying to rank for a keyword. I am wondering if we need to localize the query by adding a city to it. For example Phoenix Web Design vs. just targeting web design since Google is localizing search results now. Then when creating content and optimizing the site do we just put the keyword in the title and page content or do we also add the region/city to the keyword phrase? Any insight would be appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hireawizseo0 -
Keywords in WMT
Hello, In Googles Web master tools under "content keywords" 2 of my major keywords are missing. My site used to rank well for the keyphrase "short hairstyles" but gets very little traffic from google at all now, about 1% of what it did before april 2012. Someone did a negative seo number on us by pointing 10k+ spammy links to us from message boards, this and the timing of the traffic loss leads me to suspectthe penguin update. I am removing them as best I can but no increase in traffic has resulted so I'm looking for any and all issues and the missing keywords seems to be an oddity. The missing keywords include "short" which is pretty fundemental. The word is in the domain and plenty of times in the content. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jwdl0 -
Most effective Title Tag Structure
I want to target a set of keywords but I want to know which type of Title tag structure or wording is most effective? Here are my target keywords: CMMS, CMMS Software, EAM Software, Maintenance Management Software Do you think using exact keywords terms are most effective? For example: Title tag: CMMS, CMMS Software, EAM Software, Maintenance Management Software Or: Title tag: CMMS Software, EAM Maintenance Management Software Same goes for keyword use for content and H1 tags. Your thoughts? Thanks, John
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VizionSEO990 -
Why should your title and H1 tag be different?
Is it dangerous to have your H1 tag and your title the exact same thing? My thought was that it's not be the best use of space, but that it couldn't cause harm. What do you think?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarieHaynes7