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How to Improve SEO Titles Using Popular Keywords

Title optimization for articles, blogs, and web pages is critical for increasing traffic and earning money from Adsense and affiliates. The standard recommendation is to limit yourself to one keyword phrase per page to maintain strict relevance and avoid being penalized for keyword stuffing. However, in addition to the modifiers and words needed to create a sensible title, adding additional, related keywords has the potential to increase traffic to your site.

In this article, I’ll go over my personal experience with carefully crafting multiple keyword titles.

Keep the title concise – one keyword phrase per page

Start targeting individual keywords on separate pages and use multiple pages for related words as a golden rule. General landing pages for mixed or general topics will generally not work because you will be unable to compete for popular single keywords unless you include phrases for longtail titles. The consensus is that you should keep the title short (less than 70 characters) and only target two or three primary keywords that are highly relevant to the page’s content and goal. You can, of course, create long-tail keywords that include your primary keywords as well as a series of modifiers to create a sensible title that makes sense to both humans and the bots that use your site to evaluate it.

Stay away from keyword stuffing

There’s a lot of information out there about the dangers of keyword stuffing, which is when you use your keyword or keywords too many times in the title, description, and body copy. Google penalizes keyword stuffing, though the exact keyword density threshold is unknown. There are numerous tools available for calculating keyword usage frequencies. Keyword density is simply the percentage of the total number of words on a given page that your search term (Keyword or Keyword phrase) appears as a percentage of the total number of words. The ideal Keyword Density is less than 5.5 percent. However, different search engines have different thresholds before imposing penalties. High Keyword Densities can help boost page rankings when used appropriately, but don’t overdo it.

Keyword Density can be increased by repeating your keywords in the:

  • Title tag
  • Header tag
  • Comment tag
  • Body tag
  • Anchor tag
  • Image tag
  • Alt tag
  • Domain name, and
  • Paragraph tag

Another piece of general title advice is to avoid using the same keyword in the title more than twice.

Read Best Hospitality SEO Practices for 2022 and Beyond.

How Google and other search engines crawl and rank your title keywords

It’s not widely known, but Google and other search engines register and rank every individual keyword in your title and every combination – including different keyword orders and positions. Although there is a preference for phrases that include the keywords in the order they appear in the title, and for words that appear first, Google will register all keywords and phrases and assign a ranking to them.

Diminishing the importance of the keywords in the title

Long titles appear to be more likely to be Spammy, according to Google (especially very long titles). Longer titles may appear keyword-stuffed as well. According to research, the first keyword in the title has the most weight; the second keyword has slightly less weight, and so on. By including more words, you can reduce the weight assigned to each of them. It is critical to keep keywords close to each other and in their ‘natural’ order when targeting two-word searches and phrases. Attempt to match the likely order of the terms in the search phrase to the order in the title.

Use several keyword phrases. increase your traffic

If Google assigns a rank to all of the words in the title, including two or three keywords rather than one will almost certainly result in more traffic. Each word’s traffic should add up and multiply. Understanding when this is appropriate and when it is not is critical to title optimization. As previously stated, the weight or value of the keyword appears to decrease rapidly as you move from the first to the last word. More keywords appear, diluting the weight assigned to each word. There’s also the issue of relevance to consider. If the words you use are not highly relevant to the page’s content, your page may be penalized.

The key factor is competition; if the competition is fierce, only use a single phrase

When there is a lot of competition for a keyword, it is best to use only one keyword or phrase. Stick to the keyword phrase you discovered using Google Keyword Planner for the title. You are aware of the statistic and competition for that specific phrase, and it would be foolish to tamper with it. Various tools can be used to estimate competition and likely traffic for the phrase. The Keyword Research tool demonstrates how even minor changes in the phrase can have a significant impact on traffic and competition.

If the competition is fierce, you must maintain the strength of your page and title to compete. Including additional phrases dilutes the weight given to the keyword. You will be competing with pages that are also likely to be highly targeted on that keyword phrase. If you don’t have a singular, highly focused title for the keyword, you might lose the battle.

If there is moderate competition, add more keywords to your title

There are several approaches you can take if you have moderate competition and want to use multiple keywords in the title.

1. Make use of two or more Modifiers

To avoid duplicating the keyword, add one or two extra modifiers or action words. When you look at the competitive keyword phrases displayed by the Google Keyword Tool, you’ll notice that two phrases that both contain the primary keyword or phrase look promising.

[keyword action word 1] + [keyword action word 2] = [keyword action word 1] + [keyword action word 2] = [action word 1 keyword action word 2]

Assume you want a keyword title for your article about Green Tea health benefits and you to want to use a longtail keyword that narrows the search to extracts. The obvious answer is:

  • Green Tea Extracts’ Health Advantages

This gives a title to four phrases.

  • Green Health Benefits of Green Tea
  • Extracts of green tea
  • Green Tea Extracts’ Health Advantages

A title about Professional Make-up Artists is another example.

Make-up Artist Portfolios + Professional Make-up Artist Reviews = Professional Make-up Artist Portfolios

As a result, the title targets four phrases in one:

  • Professional Make-up Artist Evaluations
  • Portfolios of Make-up Artists
  • Portfolios of professional make-up artists
  • Portfolio Evaluations of Professional Make-up Artists

In both cases, this simple strategy allows you to create a short, concise title that is enriched by optimizing it for more than one key term and narrowing your target audience. Perhaps your article is about creating portfolios and finding and reviewing make-up artists, and this title focuses on these keywords. Of course, it is often difficult to find similar word combinations, highlighting the fact that title design is a true art form. These examples also demonstrate how to use action keywords and modifier phrases to target buyers who are ready to buy, thereby achieving the goal of your website.

2. Long tail action-based keyword selection

Long-tail titles with action words are generally more effective, as action-based queries typically attract users who have already pulled out their credit cards and are eager to find and buy what they want. Targeting your audience means you’ll lose some of your potential audience, but the ones you’ve filtered for are more likely to buy.

The role of SEO title optimization is to enrich the keywords in the title that potential buyers may use when searching to target the group that is interested in your product or services.

The best strategy is to construct the longtail keyword title not by using poorly chosen action words as modifiers, but by researching the action words and phrases as well.

To improve the title, combine competitive keyword phrases

The Google Keyword Planner Tool may suggest two promising keyword phrases that are essentially related to the same topic. Assume you’re trying to sell green tea extracts based on their health benefits, particularly to people who are struggling to lose weight. Three competitive phrases are displayed by the Google Keyword Planner Tool.

  • health advantages of green tea
  • extract of green tea
  • Green tea weight loss health benefits

These phrases can be combined in ways that keep the word order (with green tea as the first phrase) but allow all of them to work in your title.

As an example,

  • Green Tea Extract: Weight Loss Health Benefits

This longtail keyword has been optimized for all three competing phrases.

The best way to separate two phrases

When using multiple keyword phrases, what is the best separator? It doesn’t matter. A pipe (|), a colon (:), a dash (-), or a comma can be used (,)

However, do not use the underscore (_) as a separator because search engines do not recognize it. These characters provide no ranking benefit, but they do improve the readability of your title.

Managing Plurals and Synonyms

In some cases, you may want to broaden the keywords in the title to include plurals, synonyms, and other expressions relevant to your topic. For example, the terms “architect supply,” “architectural supplies,” and “technical drawing equipment” all refer to the same thing. If possible, you should craft the title to include these variants.

“Architectural Supplies: Technical Drawing Equipment for Architects,” for example.

One of the risks of focusing on a single term in your title is that it encourages over-optimization, even when it isn’t intended. You may use that single keyword throughout your page. This is less likely if variants are included.

Don’t go overboard!

You must exercise caution because adding more keywords may result in each of them having less and less impact. The more keywords you try to cram into a sentence, the less natural it will sound. For example, if you use the title –, it will appear in the search results.

Coffee at a Low Cost | Gourmet Coffee | Ground Gourmet Coffee

Google will frown upon it because it will be interpreted as keyword stuffing. Your prospective customers will dislike it because they will perceive it as unnatural and likely to provide ineffective promotional material.

Much more appropriate would be:

Suppliers of Low-Cost Ground Gourmet Coffee and Fresh Roasted Beans

Which version appears more prominently in the search results? Which is more likely to be perceived as keyword stuffing and deception?

If you have the keyword ‘Recycling Information – How And Where To Recycle, enter it here.

What if you also want to optimize your article for the keyword “Recycling Tips”?

You could create a title like

Recycling Facts – Recycling Advice – Why and How Recycling Is Beneficial

However, this is keyword stuffing, and Google will most likely penalize it.

A better alternative is

Recycling Information – Tips, Tricks, and Recyclability

Your second keyword recycling tip can be seen in the title, but with the keyword word information in between. Although this is less effective, Google will still list your page for the keyword Recycling Information – Tips. If you look at the search results where the matching keywords are displayed in ‘bold,’ you’ll notice that this happens frequently, even for pages that appear near the top of the results.

Final thoughts

  • While increasing traffic is important, it is conversion rates that truly matter.
  • The keyword “tail” should not be used to “wag” your dog (marketing strategy). Maintain the focus on the main keyword and place it at the beginning of your title.
  • To group keywords, use association and keyword matching. Rank your potential phrases in terms of search popularity, but make sure you can compete for them and cascade down by adding modifiers to create a workable longtail title.
  • Never forget that it is the human user, not the search engines, who will determine your conversion rates.
  • Your titles should be both readable and appealing.

If you do all of this in addition to writing high-quality content that is both intended for people and optimized for Google, your articles, blogs, or webpages will suddenly rank for multiple keywords with high conversion rates. You might even end up ranking first for a keyword that was never your primary focus.

Need help with our free SEO tools? Try our free Robots.txt GeneratorGet Source Code of WebpageDomain into IP.

Learn more from SEO and read BigCommerce SEO Features & Ecommerce Success Tips.

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