ok, here is the question... so, let say one has a site with plenty of content, and majority of pages (hundreds) are not perfectly optimized for SE and titles look like this: Something That Has Almost Nothing To Do With Main Keyphrase. so, the URL would look like: www.somedomain.com/Something-That-Has-Almost-Nothing To-Do-With-Main-Keyphrase. So, in ideal scenario one might want to optimize both content and title so it would look at least like this: New title: Short Phrase Starting With Keyphrase. Something That Has Almost Nothing To Do With Main Keyphrase New URL: www.somedomain.com/Keyphrase-Something-That-Has-Almost-Nothing To-Do-With-Main-Keyphrase. BUT: some pages might be already indexed and if I understand correctly by changing URL we are loosing the advantage of index. Now would it make sense to change at least the title but leave URL as it is? or what would you suggest?
if you are using wordpress you can customize it easily, just re-arrange the permalink setting, or use some plugin to make your permalink more SEO
I hope I am getting it right. Yes, you can change the titles UNLESS you think that current titles are not getting any traffic or does not have any competition at all. But don't make this a habit. Try to do a thorough keyword research and than make titles and use your keywords/keyword phrases in it... Few tips for title tag: 1. Maximum character (not word) limit is 69. 2. Write titles in call-to-action mode. It means, write something unique to attract visitors as there are other 9 sites more on SERPs (search engine result pages). 3. Avoid using too many "," "-" "|". Hope this helps
The more you match the higher you rank, cram those keywords in the url title h1 and anywhere else you can!
It seems like everyone has contradicting advice. I don't know if it's just a bunch of SEO professionals trying to throw each other off or what but it's pretty annoying. I keep hearing that the GoogleBots are wary of too many keywords in content. It's definitely a good idea to cram the keywords in the url and title but "anywhere else you can" I've heard isn't a good idea. It's better to mix it up in the content.
Yeah, no doubt. That would be something called "Keyword Stuffing" or trying to manipulate the Google system. Which I recommend you don't try. Optimize your content/articles correctly and you will be getting traffic (organic traffic) in no time.
Biztrends has good advice on title tags. Also, you can set up a plugin so that it adds the main keyphrase after the actual title: "This is the article title | Keyword 1" which can work very well if your company name is the same as the keyword. The normal was SEO'ers do this is: 'KW 1 KW 2 | Company Name' and when you're talking about a blog this can be incredibly difficult to do with titles. So.. you have to be aware of that, there are just some pages that won't have anything to do with your main keyphrase. I'd like to hear others advice on this.
I have done something like this a few times. Mostly due to the same reason as yours. If you are using wordpress, there's a plugin that would certainly simplify the process. Check out this plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/
You definitely want your targeted keywords in your URL. About changing your old url, you'll have to redirect the old urls to the new ones to keep your pagerank, but honestly I am not sure about the best way to do that. Someone here can certainly help you for this. If you are using WordPress, All-in-one-SEO plugin is mandatory, and you can set your permalinks to match your titles. But yes that would change all your old posts url That's why you really want to do this as soon as you launch a new blog.