Keyword Placement in Page Title - will changing it make a big difference?

[Lukescotty]

Hiya guys

I've noticed since changing my Title of my forum from:

Talk Nightlife | Nightlife and Clubbing forum for the UK

to

Talk Nightlife | Nightlife Forum and Clubbing Guide for the UK (current)

... That its jumped from 22nd to 10th in google for term "nightlife forum"

Am wondering, because of the on site optimisation tool telling me I should put the keyword to the front to something like eg:

Nightlife Forum | Talk Nightlife Clubbing Guide for the UK

Will changing the Keyword and putting it to front of the Title make a big difference?

Your thoughts please guys

Cheers Luke

[firstjames]

Yes! It's really make big different, my experience, i'm working on many of keywrods very compete last month, keyword in begin of title help me ranking better (from 14 > 4 within 4 day, 8 > 5 within 7 day... ).

[danatanseo]

I too have seen this kind of change make a big difference, but sometimes it;s short term and the page sinks back down to where it was before. I think a new page title makes Google bot temporarily "curious" and it thinks "Oh I've found a new page!" Remember, bots aren't as smart as humans, so it takes them a while to catch on.

It's great that your page moved up. Watch it for a month and see what happens. If it retains its position, then maybe it's a good tactic to try on other pages

It could be that the change you made was a better "title" for the actual page. Finding better, more accurate, concise and descriptive titles that really hone in on what your page is about is always a good thing.

Hope that helps!

[AU-SEO]

In short yes it makes a difference. However Primary Keywords vs Branded Keywords can influence your CTR.

If you have a high affinity Brand I certainly would consider putting those at the front of the page otherwise I have always follow the specific to general format.

[bradkrussell]

Hi Luke,

Most of the initial jump was probably due to the fact that "nightlife forum" wasn't actually in your original page title. You had the 2 individual words in your title but they weren't placed next to each other, thus Google reads them as "nightlife" and "forum".

By putting them together it signals to Google that you're trying to rank for that phrase.

As for the placement of keywords at the beginning of your page title, sure it helps a little. I usually recommend having the brand/web site name at the end. I'd go for something like:

Nightlife Forum and UK Clubbing Guide | Talk Nightlife

Your site will rank for "Talk Nightlife' anyway, it doesn't need to be at the beginning of the title.

Hope this helps!

[MoosaHemani]

Actually blogs are talking too much about link building that it seems like on-page optimization is less important or some even come to me for link building on their website with any on-page optimization was not proper.

I think On-page optimization is really important and out of all the on-page factors title tag is one of the most important one. I think if title tag can be handled correctly you can actually beat your very powerful competitors for some of the highly competitive key phrases.

[Macaper]

Hi Luke!

It is my experience that title tag is still a weight element and the last one. What that means is that first word has more effect then second that has more then third etc. We are not talking about any dramatic but a little little more.

The reason for this and the strongest reason why you should "weight" your most relevant (important) keyword to the front is how the user interact with your search result in the SERP.

Users do a vertical reading which means that our eyes will catch the first 2-3 words while browsing downwards in the SERP, so if dont have your relevant keywords within that "area" you will get less clicks.

That is also why, we in most case (not always) want the brand keyword last, so we can keep as relevant keywords in the beginning of the title as possible. 
Also if you auto generate a lot of your titles, it's smarter that if you title is longer than the ~63 characters the brand tag falls out than the relevant keyword for that page.

Also a note, if Talk Nightlife Clubbing Guide for the UK is your "brand tag" I would recommend to rework it to something shorter, to leave more room to page specific information to the left.

[Lukescotty]

Thanks for your responses guys, very much appreciated. The next step would be to change it, but advise to changing it to what? in your opinion the best.

Talknightlife is a nightlife forum for the Uk (hope you guessed that)

... so it's currently Talk Nightlife | Nightlife Forum and Clubbing Guide for the UK

what you you reckon? changing it to

A: Nightlife Forum and Clubbing Guide for the UK | Talk Nightlife

B: Nightlife Forum | Talk Nightlife a Clubbing Guide for the UK

Nightlife Forum | Talk Nightlife | Clubbing Guide for the UK

I'm ranking 1st for  "Uk nightlife forum" / "Nightlife Forum UK" so I don't really need UK at the front.

Thanks for your help so far guys, let me know more your thoughts

Regards Luke

[danatanseo]

I'm not a fan of stop words in titles. How about

Nightlife Forum | UK Clubbing Guide | Talk Nightlife

What do you think? I basically just got rid of the "and, for, the" - But it remains very readable.

[bradkrussell]

Yep, I like this one too Dana.

I'm sure "UK Clubbing Guide" would have more searches than "Clubbing Guide for the UK" anyway.