Adding a secondary keyword or other keyword variation to the title tag affect ranking for primary keyword?

[raymondlii]

Hi Moz Community,

According to Google Search Console, the main keyword for our website is undergoing a low click through rate, even though we have good ranking for that keyword (top 3). Currently, our homepage's title tag is "Brand Name: Primary Keyword".

I am thinking about adding a secondary keyword or other keyword variation to differentiate our company from others in order to possibly increase the click through rate. Will this affect the current ranking for the primary keyword?

Also, is the clickthrough data in Google Search Console accurate?

Thank you!

Best,

Raymond

[brettmandoes]

Hello Raymond, I'll answer you second question first because the explanation is a bit lengthier.

There has been a lot of debate over the years about how accurate the information in Search Console is, particularly some of the information in Search Analytics. Personally, I found the information to be inaccurate at worst and misleading at best. As an example, I searched through the number of impressions one of my client's small local sites had received over a period of thirty days and discovered my client was ranking for some long tail keywords that were misspelled and had somehow received hundreds of impressions from those keywords. I then checked the volume of those keywords in Adwords and saw immediately that there was a discrepancy between what Adwords reported (an extremely low yearly volume) and Search Console (extremely high monthly impressions).

So either A) impressions means what we traditionally know it to mean - someone typed in a keyword and landed in the SERP and saw the listing. Which would mean the information is inaccurate (possibly tracking bot traffic?). Or B) impressions means something else entirely in Search Console, which means it's misleading.

This was a roundabout way of saying don't take Search Console data as gospel. There isn't a clear cut guide on how the information is gathered and disseminated, meaning you cannot quality check it for accuracy the way you can with Google Analytics.

To answer your first question: adding a secondary keyword that's relevant is unlikely to negatively impact you. I would find it highly suspect that Google would rank you lower for adding MORE content to your website, and the additional keyword could improve CTR, which has been associated with higher rankings for awhile now, as a sort of positive signal with a short half-life. Just make sure it makes sense for your users and the topics are related. "Tree removal and tree trimming" is acceptable, whereas "Tree removal and ice cream" would be confusing and I would be unsurprised to see a negative impact from that.

[BlueCorona]

To echo Brett, it's always good to include as much information as possible to help your user determine what service/product you are offering. With that said, if you can describe MORE within your title tag, you're improving user experience. An example of doing this correctly would look like: Pizza in New York | Pizza Restaurant NY | Pizzeria

Hope this helps!

[EGOL]

Do you think that <title>Manhattan Pizza - Free Delivery in Uptown</title> would be superior?

Pizza in New York is really broad.  Could mean Buffalo.

[brettmandoes]

We always go with the more specific geo and it has worked for us. Blue was just giving an example not knowing your precise location. The only caveat is that whatever geo modifier you add should be easily recognized by both Google and users. For example, I have some clients that attempt to use abbreviations and slang on their website "because it proves I'm a local". But if Google doesn't recognize it, it has no SEO value.

Easy way to check - search the location on Google and see if they have it defined in their maps.

And I know Google knows where Manhattan is

[raymondlii]

Thank you, this is very helpful!

[raymondlii]

Thank you! This is very helpful!