Small Business | Forum « SEO Titles & Keywords

SEO Titles & Keywords (7 posts)

Topic tags: keywords, SEO, tags, title

Kim said
8 months, 2 weeks ago:
I am currently working on the SEO of our website (http://www.skh.com). Looking at other local businesses in our market I notice their title pages are jam packed with keywords.
Seeing as you can only see 60 characters, is there a value to pumping your title beyond 60 characters of text? It seemed a little extreme to have almost 20 keywords in your title
@kimberlycarlo | # | Top
John Kelly said
8 months, 2 weeks ago:
No value at all. In fact, it is hurting them and at risk of being labeled as a spammer. The best rule to follow is “less is better” because it narrows the focus of the page in question.
@johnkelly | # | Top
Nichole Schlecht said
8 months, 2 weeks ago:
@kimberlycarlo
No value, as John said. It’s considered over-optimizing and they could get penalized from search engines (if they haven’t already). For local businesses, it’s best to include the city you’re in, what type of business you are and possibly what you have to offer. For instance, for your business, it would look something like this:
Stauffers of Kissel Hill | Groceries, Coupons, Weekly Ads and Pharmacy
Adding the locations in the description since you have multiple locations.
Most people will know the name of your business since it’s local which is why you should include your business name. It doesn’t work for all businesses but is good for yours.
@iamconsulting | # | Top
Kim said
8 months, 2 weeks ago:
@iamconsulting , @johnkelly
Thank you! I had a whole debate with my IT guy about this. I thought we’d be penalized for such craziness in the title. More details can go into the description anyway. Seesh. haha!
Yes I did add the locations into the titles on our home pages and location pages. The departmental pages are a little more niche and I would not be able to add Lancaster, York, Lebanon, Harrisburg. So instead I just added in the business name.
We’ll see how it all goes!
@kimberlycarlo | # | Top
Nichole Schlecht said
8 months, 2 weeks ago:
@kimberlycarloAnytime!
@iamconsulting | # | Top
Jules Webb said
8 months, 2 weeks ago:
I’m in agreement with the comments made by @iamconsulting @johnkelly
To read a “best practices” guidline check out http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/title-tag
I’d like to add that though the presence of kewords and location is important, there is a need to balance this with making it attractive as well to the human reader and not just search engines. The term for this is SEO copywriting.
Because the title shows up as the main headline in search results and more importantly in social media it has become important that the Title tag be constructed more like a heading. Is it compelling? Does it spark enough curiosity or interest that a reader will want to click on it or share it? Follow this up with a great content in your description tag, which also shows up in search results and social media shares.
For some more insights ck out this interview with Google’s Matt Cutts (It’s from just a couple of weeks ago)
Matt Cutts Reveals Google’s Updated SEO Copywriting Strategy
Cheers!
Jules
@juleswebb | # | Top
Amy Hall, Virtual Assistant for WordPress and MailChimp Help said
8 months, 2 weeks ago:
@juleswebb Thanks for the link to the article with Matt Cutts … Exactly what I’ve been saying for a long time!!!
@amyhallbiz | # | Top