Website Title Change

[Bruce AaLee]

Is changing the title of your website bad for your google rankings. Does anyone here change their title on a regular basis to see how it affects their results? I would like to add a keyword into my title but do not want my rankings to drop. If there is a drop, typically how long does it last?

[yfs1]

You won't see a drop merely because you changed it so there is no period in which it will come back. If you have an improved title you feel will work better, change it.

[gfriedm1]

lately i have been dealing with the same title issue. we are debating changing ours because it could be far better written. what does your look like now, and what do you plan on changing it to?

let me know how it goes for you.

[ewc21]

Originally Posted by Bruce AaLee

Is changing the title of your website bad for your google rankings. Does anyone here change their title on a regular basis to see how it affects their results? I would like to add a keyword into my title but do not want my rankings to drop. If there is a drop, typically how long does it last?

It should be bad if the selection of page title is not done properly. Otherwise it should help the page rank better.

It's not the only factor in rankings though. And if changed often it can be difficult to track unless search engines index the page often and new titles show up on search result.

I am more optimistic of it going up than it going down; just create them properly with proper keyword combinations and descriptive enough to relate to your page content.

Page title is very important in determining the ranking for pages. It gives search engines an idea what the page is all about and it shows up on search results so that if it describes the page very well and it's what the visitors actually look for it will be clicked and can generate lots of leads.

[yfs1]

Originally Posted by ewc21

it's what the visitors actually look for it will be clicked and can generate lots of leads.

The best point made so far...Don't obsess over stuffing keywords into it for SEO benefit. You are much better of in the number 5 spot with a sexy title then the number 3 spot with a keyword stuffed one

[Bruce AaLee]

Right now our page title is:

Hookah - Shisha - Custom Hookahs @ Social Smoke Hooka

I was hoping to add in Wholesale, something like this:

Hookah - Shisha - Custom Hookahs - Wholesale @ Social Smoke Hooka

this covers alot of our most important keywords in the title without becoming too long or looking like its just a keyword list like some of our competitors

[gfriedm1]

i think you can add even more keywords then that to it.

ours is much longer and has far more keywords in it.

[yfs1]

Do you use the same title on every page? I'm curious why you are targetting mispellings in your Index title (Im not real up on Hookahs and whatever else you are targetting so maybe everything is spelled correctly)

[ewc21]

Can you make it more descriptive instead of just plain keywords separated by hyphens?

[gfriedm1]

meaning what, he should write sentences instead of keywords?

[irka]

Originally Posted by gfriedm1

meaning what, he should write sentences instead of keywords?

First thing you see on SERPS is the title, make it humanly readable thats the first thing you should have in mind when writing it.
After insert keywords when you think it is relevant! Don't spam serps... just for quality results sake

[yfs1]

Originally Posted by irka

First thing you see on SERPS is the title, make it humanly readable thats the first thing you should have in mind when writing it.
After insert keywords when you think it is relevant! Don't spam serps... just for quality results sake

I would go a step further...It should not only be readable by humans, but it should sell your site. Any position you may lose in doing this can easily be gained by increasing your CTR

[gfriedm1]

CTR?

[yfs1]

Originally Posted by gfriedm1

CTR?

Sorry, Click Through Rate - The amount of people that actually come to your site through your position...You can bet there are many cases where the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc listing gets more visitors then the 1st

[ewc21]

Originally Posted by gfriedm1

meaning what, he should write sentences instead of keywords?

Not necessarily. It could be a phrase that contains the appropriate description of the page.

Taking the example above my version could look like this, assuming "Hookah, Shisha, Custom Hookahs" are products at "Social Smoke Shop".

Shop at Wholesale Prices for Hookah, Shisha, Custom Hookahs at Social Smoke Hooka Store

[ewc21]

Originally Posted by gfriedm1

CTR?

Clickthrough Rate - It is the rate at which your ad is clicked as a percentage of the number of impressions.

For example your ad appeared (not necessarily seen by visitors) 100 times in the search engine results pages but gets clicked four times, your CTR is 4/100 = 4%.

[Bruce AaLee]

Lots of very good suggestions, sorry, I forgot to check the board for the past few days.

One of the main reasons I did not make the title readable is because the I did not want to loose any keyword relavece by placing the main keywords away from the start of the Title.

Our main keywords in order of importance are:
1. Hookah
2. Shisha
3. Hooka
4. Hookahs

So I was trying to get at least Hookah and Shisha as close to the beginning of the title as possible in hopes that it will have a stronger impact.

As far as targeting misspellings, in our industry there is no one correct spelling for hookah and as such even what we consider misspellings get sizable amounts of searchs.

We use a variation of the same title on every page because our website is 90% dynamically made and we do not specify a unique title for each page. I assume I could do so, but each new page has the main keyword added to our existing title and the actual url has the keywords as well.

I will be adding a few more keywords in and trying to figure out a way to make it more inviting and readable. I'll post what I can come up with, anyone with suggestions list it and lets hear what the consensus says...

Thanks for suggestions