Title Tag and Heading Tags Phrases

[gouri]

On one of my sites, this is similar to what I have on it:

Title - Widget Guidelines to Build Great Widgets
H1 - Making Machinery Changes to Build Great Widgets
H2 - Tools that Help to Build Great Widgets
H2 - Publication Recommended Guidelines to Build Great Widgets

The phrase that the page is trying to target is build great widgets.

I think the title tag, h1 and h2s are ok. The phrases are kind of different. After the h1 I have text, then I have the h2 followed by text and then the other h2 followed by text. Can you guys please tell me what you think?

[tedster]

At first look I think that you're overstuffing the target phrase "build great widgets" by including it in every one of these elements. I'd sugggest dropping it from the second H2 element. Otherwise you're running the risk of an over-optimization penalty (-950).

[gouri]

Hi Ted,

Thank you for helping me with this.

I am also trying to target "building great widgets" so do you think it would be ok if I change the second h2 to "building great widgets" from "build great widgets" and use "for" instead of "to" so that it would be "Publication Recommended Guidelines for Building Great Widgets"?

It is similar to the first phrase but it is a little different. I would appreciate if you could please tell me what you think.

This page is on the larger side. It has over 850 words on it.

[edited by: gouri at 11:08 pm (utc) on Nov. 20, 2008]

[jimbeetle]

Are the H2s subtopics of the H1, or is the H1 along with the H2s subtopics of the TITLE. I think a more correct outline form would be along this line:

TITLE - Widget Guidelines to Build Great Widgets

H1 - Guidelines to Building Great Widgets
<p>Some introductory text here - tell them what you're going to tell them.</p>

H2 - Making Machinery Changes
<p>Explanatory text.</p>

H2 - Tools that Help
<p>Explanatory text.</p>

H2 - Publication Recommended Guidelines
<p>Explanatory text.</p>

<p>And maybe a bit of closing text here - tell them what you told them.</p>

The H1 basically repeats the TITLE element in a slightly different form and each H2 is a discrete subtopic of the main H1.

I don't think it's really necessary to use "build" and "widgets" in each of the H2s. You'll probably also be using those terms in the text itself, so you really don't want to overdo it.

[gouri]

Hi Jim,

That is a nice outline that you wrote. The page is structured that way.

I used build and widgets in the h2 tags or build and widgets in one h2 and building and widgets in the other h2 because at the moment I have the phrase "build great widgets" in the title tag and the h1 tag but it is not ranking as highly as I would like it to.

I thought that adding h2 tags the way I have mentioned them above might help it to rank higher? Since the page is over 850 words I think there is room for h2 tags. The way I used to have it is where I have the h2 tags I just used bolded text with no h2 tag to say what the section is about and I don't mention the phrase in it. I think by changing the words from just description to actual h2 tags with the keyword phrases in them it may help?

At the moment, I am not ranking as highly as I would like to.

The first h2 tag is a phrase that people acutally search on, a long-tail phrase of what I am trying to target the entire page for. The second h2 tag isn't a phrase people actually search on but it contains the keyword phrase I am going for in different form.

Does it sound like I am doing the right thing?

[edited by: gouri at 11:31 pm (utc) on Nov. 20, 2008]

[tedster]

Don't worry too much about the stemming variations of "build" and "building". Google is good at catching that kind of thing, especially if the stemmed version is somewhere in the page copy.

I also agree with jimbeetle very much. Take his words to heart!

[gouri]

When you say catching, do you think it is ok if I used the second version in the h2 tag? Both versions are in the body text. I am ranking higher for the "building" form but that has less searches in a month.

[tedster]

I really can't predict - there are too many other factors in play and there can be no precise formulas. Just keep the language very natural and don't work your target phrase in too many times. Notice the outline jimbeetle created? He did not repeat your target phrase.

[ZydoSEO]

I think your one page should be broken into several pages. You stated your page has the following:

Title - Widget Guidelines to Build Great Widgets
H1 - Making Machinery Changes to Build Great Widgets
H2 - Tools that Help to Build Great Widgets
H2 - Publication Recommended Guidelines to Build Great Widgets

But you are targetting "Build Great Widgets".

I would probably focus one page on 'How to Build Great Widgets' and setup other pages for the header/subheader topics similar to the following:

<title>How to Build Great Widgets</title>
<h1>How to Build Great Widgets</h1>

The content of the 'How to Build Great Widgets' page would focus on all of the things that go into building great widgets. In the 'How to Build Great Widgets' article I would also breifly explain and link to other relevant pages that explain in more detail topics you listed has header/subheaders. I would setup an additional page for your header/subheader topics as follows:

<title>Making Machinery Changes to Build Great Widgets</title>
<h1>Making Machinery Changes to Build Great Widgets</h1>

<title>Tools That Help to Build Great Widgets</title>
<h1>Tools That Help to BUild Great Widgets</h1>

<title>Publication Recommended Guidelines to Build Great Widgets </title>
<h1>Publication Recommended Guidelines to Build Great Widgets </h1>

Of course, I'm assuming you've done the research and know that those header/subheader phrases actually get a significant amount of search volume.

Personally, I think far more people would likely search on 'How to Build Great Widgets' or 'Building Great Widgets' than would ever search on 'Build Great Widgets', but perhaps the vernacular around your 'great widgets' is different from most other widgets.

PS: Don't infer from my examples that I'm suggesting always having title and H1 be the same value. If that is the single long tail phase you are targetting then I like them to match. But If 'How to Build Great Widgets' gets the most searches and 'Building Great Widgets' is the second most popular search term and you want a single page to rank for both phrases I will do things like:

<title>How to Build Great Widgets - Building Great Widgets</title>
<h1>How to Build Great Widgets</h1>

or

<title>How to Build Great Widgets</title>
<h1>Building Great Widgets</h1>

And then use both 'build' and 'building' thoughout my article, probably with 'build occuring most and 'building' occuring slightly fewer times.

[gouri]

Zydo,

Thank you for that long, detailed response.

For the page that I am writing about, I think it should all be on one page. I think there should be one h1 tag and two h2 tags for the specific sections.

For the phrase that I am targeting, the "build great widgets" is more popular than the "building great widgets."
They are both searched on.

Ted mentioned that you don't want to put "build great widgets" in each of these tags so I made it "building great widgets" for one of the h2 tags. I think he is right about having a little variety.

I have "build great widgets" and "building great widgets" in the body text.

When I look at the text I think it looks good. After the h1 I have text, and after both h2 tags I have text that provide good details. One of the h2 tags is a phrase that gets searched on. The h1 and other h2 tag are not searched on but they contain the "build great widgets" phrase.

With the things that I have mentioned does what I have done seem good?

[gouri]

Is it ok to have same phrase in the Title tag and H1 tag?

Please tell me what you think.

[gouri]

It is actually more like this.

<Title>Build Great Widgets</Title>
<h1> Build Great Widgets <br /> A Practical Guide</h1>

Some of the title in the h1 and some more text. How's this?

[Gandhalf]

Tedster,

about that reply you gave:

"
Otherwise you're running the risk of an over-optimization penalty (-950). "

How official is it that over-optimization leads to -950 ?
Is it just a guess or are you 100% about this ?

My site lost lots of traffic from Google in june.
I still don't know the reason.

Your theory is interesting and I never thought of it but it could be the reason
But it's not like my site tanked because of changes I made (I haven't changed anything in 2 years, It was doing so well, so why change anything anyway)

So again: is it just a theory or do you know for sure ?

[tedster]

Is it just a guess or are you 100% about this ?

I'm sure - that's the only comment I know of that Matt Cutts made about the -950 penalty. See the -950 summary thread [webmasterworld.com] for the references.

Gouri, you also should read up about that - there's not going to be a cut-and-dried answer to your question because there are so many factors involved. But the more you intentionally place the same keywords in powerful spots, the more risk you take. It's a judgement call on your part - you make your decision and see what happens.

[gouri]

First, thanks for the responses.

I was wondering if we think about it in terms of keyword density. The keyword density for "build great widgets" and "building great widgets" is each under 4%. This includes the tags that we are going over: title, h1, two h2.

And I think I bolded "build great widgets" once in the body text.

Does this seem ok?

[tedster]

Last month we had a discussion about keyword density [webmasterworld.com]. For many years the consensus across many SEOs is that Google does not directly measure density. It's just not the issue to focus on. Pages can rank at the top with a keyword density of zero - or a keyword density that's way up in the clouds.

The issue is that you are working with the strongest signals on the page. There's not going to be anything to learn from discussing keyword density when the keywords are being duplicated across those strong elements. What you need to keep in mind is that you might tip into over-optimization problems by working in too many occurences of the same (or closely related) keywords. But you won't know unless you try.

[edited by: tedster at 12:51 am (utc) on Nov. 24, 2008]

[gouri]

I hear what you are saying.

[Gandhalf]

Tedster,

thx for the feedback

I'll make a few changes and see what happens

[piskie]

Tedster, have you any updated info on the lifting of such a penalty both in the action required and time involved

[tedster]

Nothing more than we knew back in January. There are a ton of factors being measured, and they're summed up in the reference thread [webmasterworld.com]. You just undo what's over-the-top and submit a reconsideration request. Especially watch out for mega-menu problems [webmasterworld.com] - anchor text is quite a touchy area, espeically when the target keyword appears as part of many different links.

Many times, people who get out of the penalty see it happen when they stop hoping and watching. That seems to me to be Google changing the threshold more than anything else.