Thoughts on adding "near me" to title tag for local SEO?
-
I want to lean out my title tags and will most likely be doing an A/B test. They currently have the "Near Me" modifier in there, which I believe Google can distinguish local SEO without it.
Thoughts?
-
@NickW816 I strongly agree with you. If you add "Near me " to the title google may randomly show the results based on your title and users search history, no matter he location.. If you really want to rank for a particular location I believe "keyword + Location would be the best idea to rank for (Even in near me searches to your location).
Google is smart enough to show the results based on location. It doesn't makes sense to add "near me" to the title. -
Good morning!
Great question, and a little history on this may be helpful.
In 2015, Google drew attention to the fact that users were increasingly using "near me" as a modifier for searches, and in an effort to prompt local results. According to Google the use of such terms as "near me" and "nearby" had doubled within the foregoing year. As a result of this, the use of "near me" terms became the subject of optimization experiments.
However, fast forward a couple of years, and Google came out with an update on this topic, which you can read in full here: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/local-search-mobile-search-micro-moments/ To sum up, these near-type searches had begun to subside. The obvious answer to the "why" of this is that users are becoming increasingly aware of that fact that Google will automatically localize a huge variety of searches to which they assign a local intent, without the user having to modify their search at all, with "near me" or even with a city name. You look up "pizza" on your phone in downtown San Francisco and you can be pretty sure Google is going to show you pizza places nearest you without you having to add a modifier of any kind.
So, does this mean that brands should no longer be including terms like "near me" in their website optimization? No, it doesn't mean that, as, according to Google, people are still searching this way. It's just that fewer of them are, so whereas in 2015 SEOs might have advised quite a good sprinkling of near-type language in a website's tags and text, in 2018, the recommended sprinkling would likely be quite a bit less. And I'll add an it-depends on this, too. There could be some demographics, perhaps by region, or age, or level of technological sophistication, or even business type where use of "near me" could still be quite prevalent. And let's not forget about voice search, and whether more natural language patterns might be leading folks to be asking their assistants, "Where's the best pizza near me?" instead of just saying "pizza".
Which brings me to why I'm voting in major favor of your A/B testing! It will help you identify which language best matches your customers' style of search. It would be really nice if, after your test, you might come back to this thread and let the community know how it went. Good luck!
-
I would for sure experiment with this, I'm working an industry where 'near me' keywords are incredibly popular. We've even created specific landing pages for them so we can target people with a specific question. Usually you won't be able to rank product or category pages just with these keywords on the page. They'll need to be specific to answer the user intent.
In regards to Nicholas, yes they'll understand the location and can use that. But it doesn't mean certain pages are the right ones to rank for that query. The question remains then if just adding it to the title will help enough.
-
While I agree with what Nicholas said, I've seen more and more instances of "near me" in titles when I search for something near me.
Check out the SERP for your queries in your area and see if others use it. -
In my experience adding "Near Me" is a waste of space in a Title Tag. Google knows where the user is and can identify the intent behind the words "near me" when in a search query, and when it comes to local searches it not needed in the title. I think it would be an interesting test/case study, but I believe it is best to use those 7 characters for something else in your meta title.
Check out this awesome WBF from Cyrus Shepard for some ideas- https://mza.bundledseo.com/blog/title-tag-hacks-whiteboard-friday.
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
-
Duplicate Page Titles
It seems as though we are being flagged for duplicate page titles when really they are slightly different. Is it better to remove the "dart board" or "dart board backboard" from all the product titles? We were doing this for optimal SEO - to rank for the search of "dart board" - but is it really hurting us? for example, our product titles are: Obama dart board backboard, Texas dart board backboard, Oklahoma dart board backboard, etc. Yet they are being flagged as duplicate titles.
On-Page Optimization | | DartsDecor0 -
How to separate your - keywords - and | Brand name in the Title Tag
I have traditionally used hyphens (-) and vertical bars (|) to separate out keywords/brands in title tags. A client has asked if other characters will work such as tilde (~), apersat (@), forward slash (/) etc. Are there any special characters we should steer clear of?
On-Page Optimization | | Switch_Digital0 -
Title tag and URL Optimization
Hello guys, Should the URL reflect the structure of the title of a webpage? This is the old title with the Url: 20mm O/D Black Polypropylene LSZH Flexible Conduit 100m Coil /Product/20mm-o-d-black-polypropylene-lszh-conduit-100m-coil/1352 I changed the keyword position and it looks like this: 20mm Flexible Conduit | O/D Black Polypropylene LSZH | 100m I kept the same Url for now, should I change that too? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | PremioOscar0 -
Does anyone have any opinions on whether to use a pipe | in your title tags? Or commas or just nothing at all?
I am trying to decided whether to use: BootsJeansandLeathers.com Mens Jeans Mens Boots Mens Leathers Mens Footwear OR BootsJeansandLeathers.com | Mens Jeans | Mens Boots | Mens Leathers | Mens Footwear as my title?
On-Page Optimization | | ebowdublin0 -
SEO strategy recommendations?
Hi My website http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk is now ranking on the 1st page of Bing and Google for phrases such as Chartered Accountant Swansea and Tax Planners Swansea But the phrase 'accountants swansea' is still performing poorly - as it is near the bottom of the second page? Would I be better placing more accountant swansea phrases on the homepage of the site or would this have an adverse effect on the current 'Chartered Accountants Swansea' ranking as would this be classed as keyword cannabilisation? So would it be better to further optimise http://www.harrisbassett.co.uk/accounting.htm and include the phrases Accountants Swansea and Auditors Swansea or would this act against the homepage? Sorry for the questions I am just looking for the best route forward to further boost the ranking on additional terms as the majority of the 1st page listings seem to weak?
On-Page Optimization | | idv0 -
Title Tag, Are the Keywords Plucked out of it?
We are working on redoing our site and I read the article from rand about how to properly format title tags, here http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tactical-seo-how-many-termsphrases-should-i-target-on-a-single-page He showed how he could take 6 keywords and use them all in the title tag: The title Tag:
On-Page Optimization | | donford
Ted Baker London - Men's Clothing Collections 2005-2008 | Sartorialmoz.org The keywords:
Ted Baker
Ted Baker London
Ted Baker Clothing
Ted Baker Mens
Ted Baker Mens Clothing
Ted Baker Mens Collection So what I am wondering is the keyword Ted Baker Mens Collection actually getting found. In this case we are dealing with a contraction (men's) and a plural form of a keyword (collections). Is it plucked out from the title tag above?
Like this? Ted Baker London - Men's Clothing Collections 2005-2008 | Sartorialmoz.org In his article he goes on to say the biggest mistake he sees is, unfortunately exactly the way our site was built 6 years ago. That is people doing this: Ted Baker, Ted Baker London, Ted Baker Clothing, Ted Baker Men's Clothing, Ted Baker Clothing Collection - Buy Online Now at Manamialameseo.com Our site does just that, while we are PR 4 and get decent traffic for the business we are in, we are doing a huge update with new pages, information, and most importantly trying to get all the SEO the best as possible. I want to make sure before we make these what could be huge impact changes that search engines do in fact Pluck the keywords from the title tag, and they are not required to be together. Thank you for any thoughts, answers and most importantly your time. Example following this formula: Our Top 3 Keywords:
Molded Rubber
Rubber Molding
Custom Molded Rubber Our Old way:
Title: Custom Molded Rubber, Rubber Molding, Molded Rubber
The new way:
Title: Custom Molded Rubber - Molding Services | OurSite.com0 -
Title, other html tags not showing on onpage reports
Either something is seriously wrong with my website or seomoz is not analyzing my site correctly. When I view the source code for my site (www.myfavoritetoys.com) I clearly see elements such as page title, h1 tags etc. However, on the onpage reports seomoz says these elements are missing. I am not seeing any meaningful data in the reports because it isn't analyzing correctly. Please help!
On-Page Optimization | | mortickles0