Local SEO - Title Tag?

[SCyardman]

For www.bluedotlandscaping.com/fencing.htm

in which we mostly only care about Greenvile and Spartanburg counties in SC.  Is

<title>Patio designs - Water features - Brick patio by Blue Dot Landscaping</title>
good... or  or do you prefer...

<title>Patio designs - Water features - Brick patio  - Greenville, Spartanburg, Simpsonville</title>

Thanks for your help,

Rich

[eyepaq]

Rich,

If you care mainly about "Greenvile" and "Spartanburg" you should find a way to start the title tag with those.

It's very important to have the main keyword / keywords in the beginning of the title tag - but avoid a spamy look.

If you can find a way to start the title tag with the keyword keywords that you really care and the title tag is looking good from a human point of view then that is a perfect recipe in my book.

It' s the way I do things related with title tags - my opinion only.

So a much better title tag will be something like:

<title>Greenville, Spartanburg, Simpsonville | Patio designs - Water features - Brick patio</title>

[eyepaq]

Something that can help from seomoz:

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/title-tag

[division1]

If locations are important it is probably better to have them at the beginning of title tag. The company name can be at the end of the title tag too. At the same time company name is in your URL anyway. Of course it is up to you to decide.

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Rich!

I'm following up on older questions that are still marked unanswered. I see you chose something similar to the second tag right now. Did you try other variations? Do you have anything of interest that you can share with us regarding your results and how changes did or didn't help your rankings/traffic/conversion?

[SCyardman]

My success has been phoenomenal.  Out of 86 keywords tracked we are on first page with 76, 65 in top 3 and 22 are #1.  This has directly contributed to our doubling of our sales volume.  Making Greenville and Spartanburg in the title tags of different pages on my site... I am positive has helped.  For a small business our non paid keyword search is great, about 900 new hits a month.  I love SEOMoz, and I appreciate the answers I have gotten from my questions.  See http://www.bluedotlandscaping.com yourself.  Not great on a national level big time type site, but for a local contractor we are heads and tails above our competition.

[KeriMorgret]

This is wonderful to hear, thanks so much for sharing with us. I've forwarded that on to some of the team, as it's great to hear when we've helped to make an impact like this.

[Morris77]

Hi. I know a lot has changed since this response.  However, generally wanted to know if targeting locally however kws in local area do not include the town names, does it still help to keep the town names in the title tag? does google deliver local results based on location names in title tag if query didnt mention it?

[KeriMorgret]

Hi Gebby,

My husband is still keeping nice and warm in his Kars4Kids sweatshirt you guys sent over a couple of years ago! This is an old thread, and it's probably best to start a new thread for more visibility. Really do appreciate you searching through the archives first though!

Keri

[Morris77]

Thanks Keri for the tip - just asked again.

Great to hear our sweatshirts are keeping someone warm - 'tis the season.  We don't send it out to just anyone you know.  Must be one of our real fans

ICUMI - http://youtu.be/vfPgwQU6H8o you'll both get a good laugh! Take care!

[KeriMorgret]

You guys had a lot of Roger love for our Draw Roger contest a while back at http://www.pinterest.com/mozhq/draw-roger-contest-entries/, so I think that's when we got some swag from you too.

I don't watch cable, so thanks for pointing out the video. Great fun!

[Morris77]

Oh cool. I heard about that, before my time though.  Thanks again!