Company name in window/title

[Mr Ruf]

Hi,

I am in the process of optimizing the title tags across a website having done so in the past seeing no negative effect on rankings. At the moment the individual categories just have the "Category" name only, I would like to add the company name onto the end so for example, now it reads:

"Garden shears" or <title>Garden Shears</title>

I feel that in a competitive market and being front page for a lot of very important keyword terms, from a branding perspective it would be good to make the title this:

"Garden Shears - www. gardeningworld.com / <title>Garden Shears - www.gardeningworld.com</title>

or

"Garden shears and more at www.gardeningworld.com" / <title>Garden Shears and more at www.gardeningworld.com</title>

This also gives support to the other channels I am investing in from a branding perspective for example print, PPC and word of mouth...

I am being told that by inserting the other words into the title I am diluting the power of the individual keywords already in the title?

My question is, technically is the above true? Will inputting the company brand name into the title effect organic search rankings? I definately feel it helps to support the other channels and will it not also help with searches for the company brand name?

Hope this makes sense!?

Any views would be great!

Thanks

[JohnW]

>I am being told that by inserting the other words into the title I am diluting the power of the individual keywords already in the title?

I don't think it matters much but I can tell you that the first part of the title tag is what counts the most so put your keywords at the beginning. Sounds like you are on the right track.

[beu]

You might try putting the domain name at the beginning of the description tag instead, if you feel it's important.

[BuildECommerce]

I agree with JohnW. From what I gather from numberous case studies and other research, it is best to have the most important keywords first as these are what the Search Engine spiders see first (deeming it most relevant).

If I were you, I would continue down the path you began with. Garden Shears - www.....

PS - There is some discussion about whether to break up the name (with dashes or this mark |) or have it included as a sentence (Garden Shears at www...). Personally, I think its merely a preference thing and not something the SE spiders care about.

[JohnW]

>You might try putting the domain name at the beginning of the description tag instead, if you feel it's important.

Yes, whatever you are trying to rank for should be up front in the tag. If the domain name is a term that you dont already rank for, this will help, but unless the site has some problems it should rank for its domain name anyway.

[AussieWebmaster]

I usually use three keyword phrases per title tag... make it the same keywords and then use them all in the description information (written as a sentence)

then make sure they are used on page and with H tags or emphasis tags

[BuildECommerce]

then make sure they are used on page and with H tags or emphasis tags

True. H tags do stand out to the spiders. But lets not forget that the intent is for title tags.

While changing the title tags, I would also optimize your meta tags for description and keywords since they are also in your Header. Having uniformity in the Header will help. Having uniformity throughout the page is better (which is where the H tags come in).

[AussieWebmaster]

H1 etc tags do show emphasis to the spiders

[beu]

>If the domain name is a term that you dont already rank for, this will help, but unless the site has some problems it should rank for its domain name anyway.
As JohnW said, the site should rank for your domain name. As a result of your brand name being the same as your domain name you should have no problem ranking for that term. In terms of SEO it seems silly to waste good real estate on a term you should rank for by default.

TITLE "real estate" if you will, is more valuable than meta description "real estate".

In my opionion, from a branding perspective if you must "waste" any real estate on terms that the site should rank for by default, waste the cheap stuff.

What is more important in terms of your objective, increasing brand awareness by brand terms or ranking higher in search results by non-brand keyword/s terms?

In other words is it better to rank #1 for "house depot" when your domain name is house depot dot com or is it better to rank for "nails"? I'd say nails because it may help expose your brand to new customers. Anyone looking for "house depot" knows your brand!

[Mr Ruf]

Thanks for all these great replies...

I think there is some confusion where I said that I would also garner some extra optimization off the back of putting the domain name in on searches for that domain, I just saw this as an added bonus, yes, I will rank well for that anyway, true. What's more important is that people see the domain name based on other non brand searches.

I'm not sure whether splitting words up by pipes or by comma's or underscores really matters SEO wise but is more about the market you serve and what fits with your brand, I think in my sector with my demographic a sentence is better, with a younger demographic I'm sure pipes would be fine...

So it seems to me that the conclusion is: It will have no negative impact on search rankings by placing the domain name in the title tags, as long as the most important keywords (the category for example "Garden Shears") are at the front of the tag and that anything else placed in there is consistent with the description tags and on page keywords too.

[Marcia]

Garden Shears from Gardening World

That would include the words in your brand name and give you another keyword phrase as well. Some people might search for gardening shears rather than garden shears.