What's the right way to gain the benefits of an EMD but avoid cramming the title?

[xcyte]

Hi Guys,

Say I'm (completely hypothetically) building weddingvenuesnewyork.com and right now I'm organizing the tags for each page. What's the best layout so that I can optimize for "wedding venues new york" as much as possible without it becoming spammy.

Right now I'm looking at something like "Wedding Venues New York: Wedding Receptions and Ceremony Venues" for the title.. To get other strong keywords in there too.

Is there a better layout/structure?.. And is having the first words of the title on the homepage the same as the domain name going to strengthen the ranking for that term, or look spammy to Google and be a bad move? This is a new site being built

[whis]

Hi Joel,

We have exactly the same problem with our EMD site. It's a fine line between phrase targeting and keyword stuffing. (especially when you see stuffing doing well in the SERPS!)

We have found that the URL is quite a strong indicator to google so if your keywords are in there, then the title doesn't need to be too keyword heavy, which I think your suggested example is.

It may also be worth considering putting your brand name into your titles just like Moz do: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Amoz&oq=site%3Amoz&aqs=chrome.0.57l2j58j59l2j60.1582j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#safe=off&sclient=psy-ab&q=site:moz.com&oq=site:moz.com&gs_l=serp.3...1015.1455.0.1619.4.4.0.0.0.0.106.400.1j3.4.0...0.0.0..1c.1.17.psy-ab.gdYtgeZmNoQ&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47883778,d.ZG4&fp=b708dfac7b585b5e&biw=1360&bih=667

Hope this helps.

[xcyte]

Hey Thanks David, I've noticed that without even having an EMD site half way built (but having it live on the domain while things have been put together) it's actually started to rank for the main phase.

Albeit on the 24th page, but still I haven't done anything to it content-wise or tag-wise so it surprised me a bit.

Can I ask you something I just noticed about the SERPs from the link you just posted:  I thought that the limit for a meta description is about 165 characters. Some of the results for MOZ in that link have been cut off after 135/140.

It the 165 estimate exactly that, and estimate, or should 165/170 characters always be displayed in results?

[whis]

wow that excellent if your domain is ranking so early in its development. That probably shows that you really should avoid the risk of any keyword stuffing, as your domain and your content will do the work for you!

As far as I know the meta desc is roughly 155 characters but it's not always set in stone. It may be that Moz adds this ellipsis in order to limit a meta desc truncating mid-word.

[xcyte]

Thanks Ross!