Optimal Page Titles to avoid cannibalization

[Sharonrice]

Hi there Moz community

I spent today researching optimal "page titles" to avoid cannibalization of keyword. Why? Because when i set up my site previously for another industry I obviously well and truly stuffed it up with page titles that were different, but still too similar ie field marketing project setup, field marketing saas, field marketing reporting. I never ranked once for that term. Consequently, we nearly went broke in the process.

Hence my research, which led me to Rands video and other information about choosing the best page title. However, I came across two opposing name theories. So, before i make a colossal error again, could someone please clearly clarify which would be the best way for me to proceed.

First option(according to Rand's video about the snowboard website)

Main page title - Field reporting and mobile data collection (same keywords as site title?)

Subsequent  pages - titles - (p1) Field reporting for construction  (2) field reporting for medical (p3) field reporting for retail

(or is that cannibalizing "field reporting"?)

Second option

Main landing page - Field reporting Solutions for your business, for your industry

Subsequent  page titles - (p1) defect inspection & reporting for construction (p2) incident reporting for medical

But my quandary is that I wanted to rank for mobile data collection and field reporting for these industries. So how do I write the page titles without firstly keyword stuffing, secondly avoid cannibalization and lastly, not too long?

Any explanation that specifically says yes or no would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance and happy friday.

Sharon

[MikeRoberts]

Those two options aren't as opposing as you might think. The first option deals with having a highly specialized task/item/service that works for multiple industries. The second option expands on services more. Either one can work depending on what exactly you are offering as an industry and what people in those industries are searching for.

Take into account the fact that relevancy is a thing. Just because you don't use the exact word you thought you needed to use, that doesn't mean you can't be found for it. Also remember that everyone searches differently. Just because you believe people should find you for a certain set of terms doesn't mean that they will all always be entering in those terms that exact way every time into Google. So its usually best to expand the way you talk about your industry, make sure to use not only corporate buzz words but also more generic terms that are related, dig deeper into your analytics to see other ways of how people are finding your site, and take a look at Search Console to see what other terms are out there that you have impressions on but poor Click through rate.

Overall, this is part science and part creative writing. You need to find the right terms for the most qualified traffic for the right page for your site... but you need to make it sound good and look good without seeming stuffed, spammy, or deceptive. There is no easy formula for word placement that will function 100% of the time. You might find that **[field reporting] **is a better term in general so might want to use that in your homepage but then [incident reporting] might have better clickthroughs when paired with [medical] and [defect inspection] could convert better when paired with [construction]. Or you could find that the search volume isn't that different between most of them and that **[field reporting] **is the main way that all people are looking for your services.