SEO Tycoon

**shonkyboy** · 12-15-2009, 06:28 AM

This post is based upon on i started re keyword density here http://www.webmaster-talk.com/seo-ta...-question.html as i had a few more interesting things to add that i found i thought i would continue here as it was going slightly off-topic

**edgray** · 12-15-2009, 06:35 AM

Ok so my tuppence worth:

From a usability point of view I think it's important to have the company name in the title.

But either one is good:

Quote:

Business Name | Service 1, Service 2
Service 1, Service 2 | Business Name

One of the experiments I conducted on this last year showed that changing a title to:

Quote:

Keyword

ranked no better than how it was before, which was:

Quote:

Business Name | Keyword

**chrishirst** · 12-15-2009, 06:35 AM

Important for BRANDING but of little use for search as nobody will be searching for your name until you have branded it!

chicken & egg!

**shonkyboy** · 06:39 AM

The question was about the order or inclusion of the business name in the title tag.
I found a link to an seomoz article here http://www.seomoz.org/article/search...anking-factors which seems to say that the inclusion of the keyword/phrase first in the title held more importance.
I came to that by this article after a quick search to see what other pople were saying on the subject: http://forum.egypt.com/enforum/searc...-tag-3440.html .
This points to the fact that taking up valuable KW real estate as the company name on each page in the site is not a good idea.
I agree with this in principle - but based on a site like this: http://www.ricohclicksolutions.co.uk/ where the site is essentially a microsite based on a particular product that the company supplies -then maybe not such a good idea. The inclusion of the company name - in this case 'Galtec Solutions' might be of benefit here as Edgray pointed out - so that people visiting the site will know whos site it is.
Saying that - if the site was the main company site then what do people think of the inclusion - and order- of the company name in the title tag?
On most sites I do - the corporate branding (ie logo) is clearly visible on every page -so if this is the case (and the logo has alt text or a h1-3 saying the company name for example) would the inclusion of the company name in the title tag be wasted - or could the SE's make use of it in terms of indented results?
It would be interesting to hear peoples views on this.

**shonkyboy** · 12-15-2009, 06:42 AM

I think as Chris pointed out the Branding element is only important if the company name is 'out there' . Ed said that he had found no difference between Business name | keyword or Keyword alone - but im wondering if Keword | Long tail KW (or maybe part of popular search terms ) may be of more benefit considering the limit on Chars in the title tag.

**shonkyboy** · 12-15-2009, 06:46 AM

And as for ranking i think that the off page link building would be more important anyway.
What about HTML comments can they make a difference

- only joking!!

**edgray** · 12-15-2009, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shonkyboy

This points to the fact that taking up valuable KW real estate as the company name on each page in the site is not a good idea.

What that guy didn't mention was putting the keyword AND the company name in. It was a pretty poorly thought out post. He says:

Quote:

Generally speaking, the company name should never appear in the title tag unless you actually expect to derive most of your traffic from searches involving your company name.

Firstly, it's becoming very common for people to search for company names these days, especially in business, it's a good quick way to do a little due diligence.

Secondly, seeing as Google will not calculate the Keyword Density of the TITLE, why would having the name in it alongside the keywords cause a problem? If you think it will, then you have to think that Google does in fact calculate KD. Which we know it doesn't.

As I said, my own experiments showed no change in the SERPs when removing the business name.

I guess I'm pretty anal, I like uniformity. Having the company name at the top makes it look professional IMO. I really don't think that Google would care either way though, to be honest.

**edgray** · 12-15-2009, 06:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shonkyboy

I think as Chris pointed out the Branding element is only important if the company name is 'out there' . Ed said that he had found no difference between Business name | keyword or Keyword alone - but im wondering if Keword | Long tail KW (or maybe part of popular search terms ) may be of more benefit considering the limit on Chars in the title tag.

That's a very good point. I suppose if you're trying to optimise for a lot of keywords or a couple of Longtails then sure, I could see the benefit of removing the business name.

**chrishirst** · 12-15-2009, 07:09 AM

Brand the company name on the "home" page, about us,contact pages etc etc.

For other pages the target phrase should be at the front. And this is NOTHING to do with whether it's "more important" or not it's simply sommon sense.

If the phrase the searcher used is at the front of the linked title in the results list, it is more likely to gain the click through!

which would YOU click on??

"Red Widgets 10 a penny at Bobs ... porium"

or

"Bobs Widget Emporium! Red Wi.....enny"

Common sense, logic and your OWN testing should be your guide not somebody elses possibly flawed or biased testing.

If you look at other peoples testing, examine their methods to ascertain whether they set out to prove a point or were they trying to determine something?

**shonkyboy** · 07:44 AM

Yeah - thanks for the input guys - i have a project on at the moment that this may of be particular importance for a rewrite of this site www.decision2day.com - it would be good to determine the best way to tell the developer/coder to structure the titles on the pages related to each trade/area its going to be a tough one becase in really need the KW in the title to say something on the lines of 'find a builder in leeds' 'find a joiner in blackpool' or variations of when i have determined what is best - the phrases need to be orientated for the user to promote a call to action as stated by Chris - so i am thinking very much on the terms of following the princliples he outlined in putting the company name on the About, Contact pages only. Its gonna be fun i can tell you !

The keyword list so far - what someone else did last year - is 1500+ phrases and a lot of them are long tail so i need to filter this lot down and decide the best titles to use on the corresponding pages. Trouble is that the 1500+ KW's dont actually take in to account the locality - so no doubt ill be having fun with that one!

**edgray** · 12-15-2009, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

... possibly flawed or biased testing.

..

**shonkyboy** · 12-15-2009, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edgray

Firstly, it's becoming very common for people to search for company names these days, especially in business, it's a good quick way to do a little due diligence.

Good point , although i would have thought a search on the company name - especially when being unique to an extent like 'decsion2day' would return one onf the Home, About etc pages as Chris stated.

A less generic company name or one based on a homograph or a potential mis-spelling / partial company name for example might not be as successful. I suppose this could count if the user typed in 'decision today' in the case of the site in question

The thousand dollar question is though , do you think that the inclusion of the company name would maybe lead to indented results in some cases?
Or am i on the wrong tracks here?

**chrishirst** · 12-15-2009, 07:56 AM

Quote:

do you think that the inclusion of the company name would maybe lead to indented results in some cases

Only if that was the search phrase.

**alex_cristo** · 12-15-2009, 09:46 AM

Well, having your main keyword in your title is good choice and after that you can add your company name or business name. But if you just want to promote your business and build brand then you can go for adding your business name in title initially.

**FenceGuy** · 12-15-2009, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alex_cristo

Well, having your main keyword in your title is good choice and after that you can add your company name or business name. But if you just want to promote your business and build brand then you can go for adding your business name in title initially.

Or when deciding your business name, include some keywords in it ie: my company is "Superior Fence Products" whereby a very good search term in part of my name as well as in my domain: buy-fence.com which I am not sure if the hyphen helps or hurts but I liked it because it was short and had the word "fence" in it, which are my main product line.

As to the original question, I prefer to put the keywords first in the title tag, just my preference.

**shonkyboy** · 12-15-2009, 06:26 PM

the use of the hyphen is a good thing as it means the SE's see two seperate words as in buy & fence . They cannot distingush conjoined terms (yet or if ever in the future) . A lot of companies seem to think the the use of a hyphen will impede the search - but as far as SE are concerned it helps them to class each word in on its own. It can be a bit of a mare though when trying to explain your URL to some dumb s#it secretary at a company when giving your email to them.
Horses for courses.........

**chrishirst** · 12-15-2009, 06:31 PM

Quote:

the use of the hyphen is a good thing as it means the SE's see two seperate words as in buy & fence

Only if the URL is used as the anchor text for a link.

**FenceGuy** · 12-15-2009, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Only if the URL is used as the anchor text for a link.

Cheese and Rice! I have never used it as anchor, but I will now!