Forum Moderators: open
Is the change worth the effort? Or, am I better with consistency across all pages with a brute-force emphasis on my top 3 or 4 key words and phrases being the same for all pages?
Sites that have the same title, meta's etc across their sites will only come up when competition for a search phrase is low, and their page rank and inbound text links wins out.
I have found high serp's for phrases I have not specifically optimised for get lower every month. Despite my page rank for those pages being high. Specifically optimised pages win out. Basic SEO stuff.
Having over 300 pages with all the same title and meta is too far too rigid, so you may have only reach 10-20% of your site potential which could even been an over-estimated figure.
>> Is the change worth the effort?
No doubt about it, provided if your traffic turns into an income
Consider the following Title examples containing key word phrases + an anchoring key word phrase (e.g., name of the company)used on each page....
The mechanical widget page example as follows....
"Widget Parts - Mechanical widgets as hardware"
or...
"Mechanical widgets as hardware - Widget Parts"
And the electrical widget page may appear as follows....
"Widget Parts - Electrical widgets in automobiles"
or...
"Electrical widgets in automobiles - Widget Parts"
So in summary, I am thinking of keeping my #1 double key word phrase used in each title (Widget Parts), either followed by...or preceded by the topical key words. Thoughts for optimizing?
Thanks!
That's been on my mind of late too, but the way I have it figured without any actual proof; the futher away from the first word in the title the less of an impact it has in search queries? But then incoming anchor text seeems to be important as well as mentioned here not long ago. I optimize every page title that has different content in an attempt to grab different search phrases.
Anyone else have any goodies to share?
Go back to my advice on the overture tool and competition on Google for search terms. Research as to what people are looking for. Are they using the exact words in the exact sequence "Mechanical widgets" or "Mechanical widget", Or are they looking for "widget parts" or "Widget Parts for specific vehicle"
All are different, so how about different pages for each.
Just make sure that you have different words in the text of the page - being those specific words per the advice in my prev post. And avoids duplicate page penalty.
You can come up with a title for each that has as secondary, the plurals of some of those words
Other options: - single pages with most common search first, then secondary including plurals
Try "mechanical widgets mechanical widget parts-business name" - or "Mechanical widgets-Widget parts-For Quality-> Business name". I have not done testing on whether when looking for "Mechanical widget parts" the first or second option comes up better. First has all three together with no dud words in between, but "widget parts" are words 4 & 5. Second has words in between, but "widget parts" words 3 & 4.
I like to have a differentiating term as part of the title. Quality, service, what makes you different. Remember, that the title will always appear on Google and so they will always see a sales pitch in the title, but they wont always see you sales pitch in the Google description since it is based on the words searched for.
I keep the title to 60 characters given that is around the max that Google displays. If you go longer, the words can count for ranking, but the user doesn't see those words and so clickthroughs can be less. Google highlights words in its description, but shows from the first word in the title and truncates if too long.
Title, description, first words are only part of the equation as mentioned. I can get to the top with just these right. For the more competitive terms everything else needs to be right - incoming linked text, PR, dmoz, themes so you can have two pages showing...
All the best.
