How to title my products?

[YNWA]

Hi, really struggling with product titles. Or should I say keeping staff writing out titles.

If I sell a Coat. I would like the product titled like:

Armani Jeans Coat Green but staff are doing it like Armani Jeans Fur Hooded Coat Green.

Now I think this effects our SEO efforts as how likely are people to search for the Fur Hooded coat part? Yes we might hit the numbers of the small search but is it really worth it?

Would it not be best put this Fur Hooded part in the short description and long description?

I am trying to make my SEO titles and meta descriptions consistant for 1 product. But find it hard writing out Fur Hooded in the Meta Title when I know numbers will be minimal?

The SEO titles or the product titles are effectively links on the website for each product. So hold more weight and the product titles act as the H1 titles on the product page itself.

Surely we would be best using Armani Jeans Coat Green rather than such a long, obscure title that will gain very little search?

Whats best way to approach this issue? As we can have products titled like: Creative Recreation Kaplan Patent Leather/Snake Trainers Charcoal. Which to me is too long, too obscure. Surely the extra detail should go in Short Description which is visible on the catelog page and keep the product titles shorted and more to the point, eg Creative Recreation Kaplan Trainers Snake Charcoal? All this Patent Leather/ business seems pointless to me?

Any ideas?

[YNWA]

And does this article make sense and thoughts on it? As the issues he mentions are exactly what I am thinking...

http://www.smartinsights.com/search-engine-optimisation-seo/seo-content-strategy/five-seo-tips-for-product-pages-on-ecommerce-websites/

[david.smith.segarra]

Hi,

Considering the Humingbird update from Google I wouldn't worry too much about which of the two ways you write the product titles, as long as you are consistent in the way you decide to write them.

Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land Says about Humingbird:

If you type into Google:

“What’s the closest place to buy the iPhone 5s to my home?” A traditional search engine might focus on finding matches for words — finding a page that says “buy” and “iPhone 5s,” for example.

Hummingbird should better focus on the meaning behind the words. It may better understand the actual location of your home, if you’ve shared that with Google. It might understand that “place” means you want a brick-and-mortar store. It might get that “iPhone 5s” is a particular type of electronic device carried by certain stores. Knowing all these meanings may help Google go beyond just finding pages with matching words.

It is always important to have the key terms in the title, just make sure you are consistent. We used to call our products names, so if I was selling a red polka dot dress, I would call it 'LaFrock (our brand) Red Polka Dot Dress - Chloe' eventually we would rank for 'Red POlka Dot dress' but our returning customers would search for 'LaFrock Chloe dress' and we started ranking for those terms as well..

Hope this helps

Dave

[crackingmedia]

Hi, I agree with David's comments. All I would add is that whilst Hummingbird will give more attention to long tail searcehs that does not mean stuffing the Title tag with more words.

Best current advice re Title tags is to keep the main words at the start of the Title and keep words focussed and to a minimum where possible on the basis that the more words you have the more diluted the title is.

In the example you have given I think the Title should definitely start with "Armani Jeans Coat". To differentiate it then from other Armani Jeans coats I would make it ""Armani Jeans Coat - Fur Hooded - Green". Some would say using hyphens is not good for SEO in a Title tag, but I think it is matching SEO with readability and Hummingbird may well fit with that too.

I hope that helps,
Peter

[YNWA]

Thanks.

I just feel that althought the longer ones are relevant as it describes product, maybe this area can be improved on and the titles made shorter whist still being long tail?

I mean, how many people search for armani jeans fur hooded coat green and how many search for armani jeans coat green?

Also do you guess recommend the colour being the first word of the product title or keep it to the end?

Red Armani Jeans Coat seems a lot more natural than Armani Jeans Coat Green? Does it even matter?

[crackingmedia]

I think people are more likely to search for Red Armani Jeans Coat than Armani Jeans Coat Red, but I don't think that means you should necessarily structure your Title tag as "Red Armani Jeans Coat" - but I am more than happy to hear otherwise.

Google is always trying to understand the searcher's intent and the question they are asking irrespective of whether they write their search short or long. The question the person is asking in this example is "Where can I buy a red Armani Jeans Coat?", but that doesn't mean a web page with the Title tag "Armani Jeans Coat - Red" will not rank well for that search.

Google will understand that first and foremost they are looking for an Armani Jeans coat and not a red coat. So, by structuring a Title as "Armani Jeans Coat - Red" makes the title unique and makes it clear that the page and ultimately your site (because you will have other Armani Jeans pages) sells Armani Jeans clothing. That also fits with Google's Hummingbird update as that is looking at the breadth of the site for a search and not just individual pages that they list in their results.

I'm not sure how much my ramblings above makes sense, but I hope it helps.

Peter

[YNWA]

Thanks.

I may take that approach with Arman Jeans Coat - Red set up. As I go into next 6 months I really want to push the on-site seo and get product meta titles and descriptions bang on the money.