Optimal Page Titles to avoid cannibalization
-
Hi there Moz community
I spent today researching optimal "page titles" to avoid cannibalization of keyword. Why? Because when i set up my site previously for another industry I obviously well and truly stuffed it up with page titles that were different, but still too similar ie field marketing project setup, field marketing saas, field marketing reporting. I never ranked once for that term. Consequently, we nearly went broke in the process.
Hence my research, which led me to Rands video and other information about choosing the best page title. However, I came across two opposing name theories. So, before i make a colossal error again, could someone please clearly clarify which would be the best way for me to proceed.
First option(according to Rand's video about the snowboard website)
Main page title - Field reporting and mobile data collection (same keywords as site title?)
Subsequent pages - titles - (p1) Field reporting for construction (2) field reporting for medical (p3) field reporting for retail
(or is that cannibalizing "field reporting"?)
Second option
Main landing page - Field reporting Solutions for your business, for your industry
Subsequent page titles - (p1) defect inspection & reporting for construction (p2) incident reporting for medical
But my quandary is that I wanted to rank for mobile data collection and field reporting for these industries. So how do I write the page titles without firstly keyword stuffing, secondly avoid cannibalization and lastly, not too long?
Any explanation that specifically says yes or no would be greatly appreciated
Thanks in advance and happy friday.
Sharon
-
Those two options aren't as opposing as you might think. The first option deals with having a highly specialized task/item/service that works for multiple industries. The second option expands on services more. Either one can work depending on what exactly you are offering as an industry and what people in those industries are searching for.
Take into account the fact that relevancy is a thing. Just because you don't use the exact word you thought you needed to use, that doesn't mean you can't be found for it. Also remember that everyone searches differently. Just because you believe people should find you for a certain set of terms doesn't mean that they will all always be entering in those terms that exact way every time into Google. So its usually best to expand the way you talk about your industry, make sure to use not only corporate buzz words but also more generic terms that are related, dig deeper into your analytics to see other ways of how people are finding your site, and take a look at Search Console to see what other terms are out there that you have impressions on but poor Click through rate.
Overall, this is part science and part creative writing. You need to find the right terms for the most qualified traffic for the right page for your site... but you need to make it sound good and look good without seeming stuffed, spammy, or deceptive. There is no easy formula for word placement that will function 100% of the time. You might find that **[field reporting] **is a better term in general so might want to use that in your homepage but then [incident reporting] might have better clickthroughs when paired with [medical] and [defect inspection] could convert better when paired with [construction]. Or you could find that the search volume isn't that different between most of them and that **[field reporting] **is the main way that all people are looking for your services.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
How can I avoid duplicate content for a new landing page which is the same as an old one?
Hello mozers! I have a question about duplicate content for you... One on my clients pages have been dropping in search volume for a while now, and I've discovered it's because the search term isn't as popular as it used to be. So... we need to create a new landing page using a more popular search term. The page which is losing traffic is based on the search query "Can I put a solid roof on my conservatory" this only gets 0-10 searches per month according to the keyword explorer tool. However, if we changed this to "replacing conservatory roof with solid roof" this gets up to 500 searches per month. Muuuuch better! The issue is, I don't want to close down and re-direct the old page because it's got a featured snippet and sits in position 1. So I'd like to create another page instead... however, as the two are effectively the same content, I would then land myself in a duplicate content issue. If I were to put a rel="canonical" tag in the original "can I put a solid roof...." page but say the master page is now the new one, would that get around the issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Virginia-Girtz0 -
When serving a 410 for page gone, should I serve an error page?
I'm removing a bunch of old & rubbish pages and was going to serve 410 to tell google they're gone (my understanding is it'll get them out of the index a bit quicker than a 404). I should still serve an error page though, right? Similar to a 404. That doesn't muddy the "gone" message that I'm giving Google? There's no need to 410 and die?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HSDOnline0 -
Can a home page penalty cause a drop in rankings for all pages?
All my main keywords have dropped out of the SERPS. Could it be that the home page (the strongest) page has been devalued and therefore 'link juice' that used to spread throughout the site is no longer doing so. Would this cause all other pages to drop? I just can't understand how all my pages have lost rankings. The site is still indexed so there's no problem there.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK0 -
How Shall I represent title in my web pages
Few Questions. In Each And Every Page Title I Would Like To Add My Brand Name, and Then Some Keywords. Example : **Brand Name - Creative Watches ** I would like to use my brand name first of title and also in every page title. If i use brand name in every pages of my title does it will be duplicate title. please suggest me that can we use brand name in every pages of title or not.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sumit600 -
Optimize a Classifieds Site
Hi, I have a classifieds website and would like to optimize it. The issues/questions I have: A Classifieds site has, say, 500 cities. Is it better to create separate subdomains for each city (http://city_name.site.com) or subdirectory (http://site.com/city_name)? Now in each city, there will be say 50 categories. Now these 50 categories are common across all the cities. Hence, the layout and content will be the same with difference of latest ads from each city and name of the city and the urls pointing to each category in the relevant city. The site architecture of a classifieds site is highly prone to have major content which is not really a duplicate content. What is the best way to deal with this situation? I have been hit by Panda in April 2011 with traffic going down 50%. However, the traffic since then has been around same level. How to best handle the duplicate content penalty in case with site like a classifieds site. Cheers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ketan90 -
Page Title - Truncated - Even though it is less than 66 characters
Our page title is 64 characters, but it is still be truncated by Google even though it is less than the allotted 66 characters. Our Title: Women & Mens Sunglasses as low as $10 to $20 - SunglassDeals.com Truncated to: Women & Mens Sunglasses as low as $10 to $20 - SunglassDeals ... To see, search "sunglassdeals.com" on google.com. Any answers or help would be appreciated. Thanks. James
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tuckjames0 -
High number of items per page or low number with more category pages?
In SEO terms, what would be the best method: High number of items per page or low number with more pages? For example, this category listing here: http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/90/fsx-civil-aircraft/ It has 10 items per page. Would there be any benefit of changing a listing like that to 20 items in order to decrease the number of pages in the category? Also, what other ways could you increase the SEO of category listings like that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter2640 -
Links to Facebook pages
I would like to ask if anyone has any knowledge regarding linking to a company's facebook page. I have built a few links to a client's facebook page in an effort to have it rank better in SERPs. I just learned that unlike twitter and linkedin, it is apparently not possibly to directly link to facebook pages. At least it is not possible from a search engine's perspective. If you follow any facebook page link while you are not logged into facebook, you are redirected to the facebook home page. I can't think of any way around this obstacle. I'd love some clever solution such as providing a URL which includes a basic dummy facebook login but there is nothing I am aware of to achieve this result. Does anyone have any ideas on this topic?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RyanKent0