Name of website in TITLE tag - use or not to use? Any research?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by Death4you, Jul 3, 2009.

  1. #1
    Hello,

    Which title is better (more clicks on SERP):

    Do you have any research results?
     
    Death4you, Jul 3, 2009 IP
  2. edgray

    edgray Peon

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    #2
    I've seen Matt Cutts talk about title tags, and he said, as usual, make it good for people. Having your company name/site name in there is good for people. I suggest titles like:

    Company Name | Service 1, Service 2

    Where the services would of course be your keywords.

    I once tested a site I worked on. It was an architecture company. Once the site was showing up in the SERPs I removed the company name, just leaving the keyword 'architects' as the page title. We didn't change position at all.

    So I would say put your domain/company name in for sure.
     
    edgray, Jul 3, 2009 IP
  3. promisem

    promisem Active Member

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    #3
    I suggest Keyword | Domain.com. The keyword has SEO value, but the domain has branding value. Branding matters if you are a large site with any hope of building an audience and gaining return visits if people remember the name of the site. Acquisition has high labor and money costs; retention has low costs.

    I would put the keyword first because it's what people care about and what they read first in the title within the search engine results. The domain name is an added benefit for your sake.
     
    promisem, Jul 3, 2009 IP
  4. Volt Nincs

    Volt Nincs Member

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    #4
    I have to agree with promisem.

    Don't use CAPS in the title, people don't like titles like those in the SERPS. :)
     
    Volt Nincs, Jul 3, 2009 IP
  5. S_A_W

    S_A_W Active Member

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    #5
    Sure, it is a great way to build up your brand! I don't know if it really matter if the name is at the front or back of the title. I would put it at the front if your company/site is already well known or at the back if you aren't
     
    S_A_W, Jul 3, 2009 IP
  6. unna

    unna Well-Known Member

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    #6
    i think Name of website in TITLE tag is useless.
     
    unna, Jul 3, 2009 IP
  7. andrewhudson1985

    andrewhudson1985 Peon

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    #7
    i suggest keyword1 | Keyword 2 | Keyword 3 .. dont use domain name except home page, thats what i am thinking and i have experienced till now , else is in your hand :)
     
    andrewhudson1985, Jul 3, 2009 IP
  8. djingel

    djingel Active Member

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    #8
    use company name
     
    djingel, Jul 3, 2009 IP
  9. Canonical

    Canonical Well-Known Member

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    #9
    I suggest each page should target a single keyword phrase (or possibly 2 or 3 keyword phrases if they are VERY similar). I think having the site name in the <title> hurts your rankings. It reduces the keyword densitly within the <title> element itself of those words in the targeted keyword phrase. Most sites who make the mistake of including it place it 1st in the <title> element which indicates to the search engines that that is the MOST important keyword phrase you want the page to rank for... It's NEVER wise to have ever page on your site about or trying to rank for the same keyword phrase. And for 99.99% of sites it does NOT help with click-thru-rates when displayed in the SERPs because 99.99% of the sites on the web have no brand awareness.

    The ONLY time I would include a sitename in the <title> at the expense of rankings is if I thought that my site had enough brand awareness (this would have to be a HUGE brand awareness where practically everyone on the web knew of my site/company) that showing it in the SERPs would add enough credibility to make someone click on it when they would not if it were missing. But this is almost NEVER the case. But I would do so knowing it's going to make it even harder to rank for my targeted keyword phrase. Even then I would place the site name last in the <title> element since the words closer to the beginning of the <title> are considered more important from a ranking perspective than those at the end.

    Our company has 85% US household brand awareness and I ripped every occurrence of our site name from all 4000+ <title> elements on our PR7 site back in Dec when we redesigned the site... I even removed it from the <title> of the home page. I have not regretted it at all... Our rankings and traffic are better now than ever in the history of the company.

    I think it's MUCH more important that the keyword phrase that people are searching for show up in the <title> element rather than some domain name for some random no name site the searcher has never even heard of.

    So my choice for building <title> elements is ALWAYS:

    and if the page is targetting 2 or 3 VERY similar keyword phrases (generally different by only one word or using a slight variation of a word - singular vs. plural, tense, conjugation, etc.) in which case my choice is always:

     
    Canonical, Jul 3, 2009 IP
  10. shopperama

    shopperama Guest

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    #10
    I totally agree. Always use your keywords/phrases starting with the most important first. Unless you are already a brand (like BMW, Disney etc.) that people are searching for leave your site name or company name out.
     
    shopperama, Jul 4, 2009 IP
  11. Death4you

    Death4you Active Member

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    #11
    I'll try

    and I'll check results
     
    Death4you, Jul 4, 2009 IP
  12. IMcruiser

    IMcruiser Banned

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    #12
    Canonical has nailed this one. Different pages | Different keywords
     
    IMcruiser, Jul 4, 2009 IP