23 replies to this topic

[SteelersFan]

Hi,
I'd like to know if there is in people's minds here an optimal number of words that can be used in a homepage title? I think we touched on this a while back but I can't find the thread. I know that some people might only have a homepage title with 2 words if that is the name of their business. Some might go real long with a lot of words. I've seen titles with 30 words in it. The benefit in my mind is that the more keywords in the title the more likely you are to show up in the search engines under a term so I could see some benefit of using a real long title. Yet, at the same time I wouldn't think you'd want your homepage too bulky with extra words. Any suggestions on a good title length in terms of words? Say 2-13 words? Or is more ok? Thoughts?

[Jill]

10 -12 words.

2 worrds would be biggest waste of title tag evah!

[SteelersFan]

10 -12 words.

2 worrds would be biggest waste of title tag evah!

Ok, thank you. :-) In your professional opinion is there a preference for how many keywords is the max you should target in those 10-12 words? Or should you try to target as many keyword combinations as possible in those 10-12 words? I thought at one time keyword density played a part in title tags and the higher the density the better? Is that too old school now?

[Mooro]

10 -12 words.

2 worrds would be biggest waste of title tag evah!

People and company names are just two situations where you're wrong.

Relevancy matters more than word count.

[Jill]

Or should you try to target as many keyword combinations as possible in those 10-12 words?

Bingo!

[Marchy]

Now how many times can we repeat a word? For example, let say you sell bars and in your title you put "chocolate bars" "protein bars" "weight lost " etc. So in this case how many times can I repeat the same word without spamming?

[Jill]

I typically try not to repeat any one word more than 2 times, but I occasionally need a word in there 3 times.

[chrishirst]

Now how many times can we repeat a word? For example, let say you sell bars and in your title you put "chocolate bars" "protein bars" "weight lost " etc. So in this case how many times can I repeat the same word without spamming?

in 12 words?

Oh 12 times at most, however it would look rather ridiculous and be a total waste of "page real estate"

[Catz]

Remember, that page title is going to be used in the SE's as the link to your page, so you want it to make sense to a potential human visitor, grab their attention and make them want to click it and visit your site to find out more.

You have to bring the human factor back into the equation.

If I saw a page title that said Chocolate Bars, Protein Bars and Weight Loss, it wouldn't seem spammy but I would expect to find an article about these things if I clicked it, rather than the products for sale.

[SteelersFan]

Is there a max number of keywords you should target in your homepage title? I think I've heard it as place as many keywords in as you can in the 12 word allotment, yet most of the pages I see on the top pages for a particular keyword only have that keyword in the title.

I've looked at my top competition site which probably has 12,000 pages on his site, yet he appears to only try for two main keywords in his 8 word homepage title tag. The title tag sounds good that he uses and the top two keywords are at the very beginning of the tag and at the very end. He does use the one word keyword twice in the title tag. Since I have other pages focusing on these good keywords and the fact my homepage mainly focuses on two keywords, should I optimize my homepage for just those two keywords?

[chrishirst]

yet he appears to only try for two main keywords in his 8 word homepage title tag

And??

[Jill]

Since I have other pages focusing on these good keywords and the fact my homepage mainly focuses on two keywords, should I optimize my homepage for just those two keywords?

Everyone does their SEO differently so there's no one right way.

But I wouldn't do it that way. Why optimize a page for just two keywords when you can optimize it for many more? Especially a home page.

[MauriceWalshe]

Everyone does their SEO differently so there's no one right way.

But I wouldn't do it that way. Why optimize a page for just two keywords when you can optimize it for many more? Especially a home page.

Quite I would normaly have 2 if not 3 related terms in the page title plus the name of the site at the end, I used to work on a big Audi dealers site and a spent some time working out for each Audi range which of the Audi subtypes was searched the most, so for the A4 page I could pick the strongest keywords.

[SteelersFan]

And??

And?? Did you read my previous post? I'm being told here to try to fit the most keywords in the title tage and when I do that my ranking suffers and it appears those that target only a few keywords in the title tag seem to do better. Might not always be the case, but that's what I'm seeing in my situation.

[SteelersFan]

Everyone does their SEO differently so there's no one right way.

But I wouldn't do it that way. Why optimize a page for just two keywords when you can optimize it for many more? Especially a home page.

Well, I would have thought the same thing, but this guys site rises above all the rest who are targeting more keywords in their title tag. There's even one guy who's got 25+ words in his title tag and ranks on the second page for those two major keywords. So go figure. I'm completely baffled on that one.

I think my SEO schooling is quite old school, as I've been on web design sabbatical for 6 years focusing with my ministry site, but conventional wisdom would have told me to keep the total word count low and with your two keywords taking up most of the density. I know that is not how it works now as I see some sites with long titles and only one instance of a keyword in there and at various areas of the title tag as well. It use to be to put the keywords near the beginning of the title tag or maybe even at the end. But that was SEO from the 90's when search engines were really primitive. LOL

I'll tell you this, in my three top keywords I have tried to get ranked high for on the homepage, the best result I have gotten through by ranking high in the search engines was to use a 20-25+ keyword title. While the site ranked higher, it didn't look as good as going with a more compact title tag. Very confusing to say the least.