SEO - H1 Tags & Meta Titles

[billtheinvoice]

Hi,

Does anyone know if H1 Tags and Meta Titles are best if they are the same?

Probably a stupid question but my research brings up conflicting advice!

Thanks

 

[maxh]

Hi,

Does anyone know if H1 Tags and Meta Titles are best if they are the same?

Probably a stupid question but my research brings up conflicting advice!

Thanks

Do you mean titles as in

<title> </title>

Or

Meta Title as in

<META NAME="Title" CONTENT="Page Title Here">

?

Either way, you want your keyword(s) in both. They don't need to be identical, though.

 

[GreatSEO]

Ideally not exactly the same as this will do you no favours.

Making sure your main targeted key terms in each is important though.

What is more important is making sure that the consumer that reads your title, description, header etc are making sense of it and that it is compelling and engaging to entices users into the site.

I hope this helps

SEO is not just about positions but also conversions. Having a pretty site that gets lots of traffic is no good if conversions are not happening.

Dave

 

[nicknell]

hi,
H1 tag is use for main heading of our site.
And title tag tell about our site.

We have try to make diffrent these tag for our website.

 

[webgeek]

Not exact matches, but they should convey the same meme and on each page carry the root, or roots of your top optimized keywords.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Hi,

Does anyone know if H1 Tags and Meta Titles are best if they are the same?

Probably a stupid question but my research brings up conflicting advice!

Personally, I'd be far less likely to click on a SERP listing where the 2 were the same.

Firstly, because the site had missed the opportunity to expand on the sales message with the meta description.

Secondly, because it looks spammy to me. It tells me that the site got to page 1 by (not particularly sophisticated) artificial means. And that's usually the sign of a poor site.

Of course, I know more about SEO than your prospects, so my thoughts on the matter won't be representative of the general population.

 

[webstore]

. . . Does anyone know if H1 Tags and Meta Titles are best if they are the same? . . .

Works for us much of the time. Do a search on 'lost cameras' and we have two sites at positions 4 & 5 of page one of google.co.uk for lost-cameras.com and lostcameras.co.uk

That's much to do with us having domain name, <title>, <meta description content . . .> and <h1> carrying our keyword 'lost cameras'

Needless to say when you are using a highly competitive keyword then the above is unlikely to push one very high in SERPs unless you have high quality inbound links and good site metrics.

 

[cmcp]

They both perform a fairly similar function, to describe the content of that page within a site.

Titles I usually make hierarchical, so it may be "Page Heading - Category Name - Site Name".

H1 describes the overall content on that page, so I usually just have "Page Heading".

Remember titles get used as bookmarks as well. This usually helps me when approaching page titles.

In terms of clicking through, it is always good to have a prominent page title within the page as this reassures the user they are on the page they thought they'd be on when they clicked. It's not spammy, it's just usable.

 

[seo2maker]

Hi, Both are quite different and important tag for SEO purposes to the Google search engine. h1 ( head tag) describe the specific page title where as Title says search engine about your site in overall

 

[bdw]

Ideally not exactly the same as this will do you no favours.

Do you have a reference for this?

Personally, I'd be far less likely to click on a SERP listing where the 2 were the same.

Not sure if you are understanding the question but the SERP listing does not display both so you wouldn't know they were the same until you did click. The SERP listing in Google displays a snippet that Google creates from the page content. This includes the page title and a description, which Google pulls from the page.

.

 

[Kevin H]

Hi,

Does anyone know if H1 Tags and Meta Titles are best if they are the same?

Probably a stupid question but my research brings up conflicting advice!

Thanks

I would not say that having the two the same is 'best', but in general I would advise having both the H1 of the page and the page title both include your most important keyphrase for that page.

The main point to remember is that the H1 is designed to be the 'title' of the page that tells your visitor what the page is about, if it is just confusing or irrelevant, then even if it helps a little with your SEO it may harm your conversion. (Most times this isn't an issue, but can be - though can't think of an example off the top of my head)

Possibly it's best with an example:

If I had a businesss 'My Shoe Shop' and I wanted this page to be about 'Blue Suede Shoes' then I would look for the following:
- title = 'Blue Suede Shoes | My Shoe Shop'
- H1 = 'Blue Suede Shoes'
so, not exactly the same, but you can see the relationship. You could do both the same, but I would prefer my shop name to appear in the SERP title along with the product - but I definitely don't need it in the H1.

 

[bdw]

If I had a businesss 'My Shoe Shop' and I wanted this page to be about 'Blue Suede Shoes' then I would look for the following:
- title = 'Blue Suede Shoes | My Shoe Shop'
- H1 = 'Blue Suede Shoes'

Based not on science but entirely on my own experience I would change that title to "Blue Suede Shoe Shop". I have found that the more concise a title is the better it is for SEO purposes. I find that having more keywords and longer titles causes the SEO effect to get diluted.

There really is no need to waste space on the business name unless it is one that people are likely to be searching for. Your website visitors will see your business name on the page anyway.

.

 

[GreatSEO]

BDW - bang on with the advice on the titles. It is actually better to concentrate on 1 core key term per page as this will give you the best possible position from an onsite point of view.

Dave

 

[cmcp]

Based not on science but entirely on my own experience I would change that title to "Blue Suede Shoe Shop". I have found that the more concise a title is the better it is for SEO purposes. I find that having more keywords and longer titles causes the SEO effect to get diluted.

So by that logic, on the page for red suede shoes you'd have "red suede shoe shop"? Not very scalable is it?

There really is no need to waste space on the business name unless it is one that people are likely to be searching for. Your website visitors will see your business name on the page anyway.

Actually, the title is there to provide a title to the document, in a wide context. It's perfectly alright to have the site / business name in the title, as it gives the document context.

 

[bdw]

Sorry I disagree.

 

[cmcp]

You disagree with what part? For a page on "blue suede shoes" why you would change the title to "blue suede shoe shop", where the subject of the page is not about the shop nor the business name, is beyond me

Or you disagree with the purpose of the title tag?

 

[StageFiveSEO]

I always think of my H1 and Title Tag as if I'm writing an Ad. They need to stand out in the SERPS, as well as containing your keyphrase in there.

 

[bdw]

You disagree with what part? For a page on "blue suede shoes" why you would change the title to "blue suede shoe shop", where the subject of the page is not about the shop nor the business name, is beyond me

It shouldn't be beyond you. It's all quite simple and I explained it all in the post to which you refer. There is no need to get concerned about having the business name in there unless it is one that people will be searching for. I was commenting on that.

.

 

[bdw]

I always think of my H1 and Title Tag as if I'm writing an Ad. They need to stand out in the SERPS, as well as containing your keyphrase in there.

But H1's do not (by default) appear in the SERPs?

.

 

[StageFiveSEO]

But H1's do not (by default) appear in the SERPs?

.

Scratch that, I meant <title> tags.

 

[cmcp]

It shouldn't be beyond you. It's all quite simple and I explained it all in the post to which you refer. There is no need to get concerned about having the business name in there unless it is one that people will be searching for. I was commenting on that.

.

The need may be to give the document context within the site. That is what the title tag is for.

Calling a "blue suede shoes" page "blue suede shoe shop" is an unscalable approach which doesn't describe what's on that page. Why you would choose and advise a seemingly incorrect approach is what is beyond me.

 

[bdw]

It shouldn't be beyond you because my post was in context to the post I was commenting on, which mentioned a title and an H1 for a specific page. I stand by my advice for that specific page, end of story.

.

 

[cmcp]

Ok I think you're maybe misunderstanding my point. All I'm saying is, if you have blue suede shoes on a page and make that title "Blue suede shoe shop", then on another page you have green trousers, if you followed that pattern you'd have "green denim trouser shop", "yellow plastic umbrella shop" etc I'm pointing out that those page titles don't represent what's on the page.

Having the site name on those pages makes much more sense, "Blue suede shoes - BDW Brand Shop" "Green denim trousers - BDW Brand Shop" etc. These titles make a lot more sense in any context.

But hey, carry on

 

[bdw]

Having the site name on those pages makes much more sense, "Blue suede shoes - BDW Brand Shop" "Green denim trousers - BDW Brand Shop" etc. These titles make a lot more sense in any context.

I appreciate what you are saying but to further explain, my point was basically in response to the poster proposing a way of optimising for essentially two different terms on the same page. One was for the shop and the other for the shoes. My solution was to combine both to make it more succinct while including all the useful keywords.

I would still say that there is nothing to be gained (for SEO purposes) in including the business name in all page titles. In my experience any business should appear in the search results in a search for its name without the name having to appear on all pages (given that the website has been properly optimised).

.

 

[sunder0786]

The H1 tag is one of the most important things to keep in mind because it is associated to the body of the web page.
The meta title is an important part of both what search engines and web visitors look for to judge to validity of your site, so it is an integral part of SEO.

 

[vsmarketing]

We have seen results when including the main keyword for that page into the H1 Tag. We regularly target 3-4 keywords per page including variations of the main keyword, and include the keyword into H1 Tag. This has helped rankings and has not affected conversation rates.

 

[bdw]

This has helped rankings and has not affected conversation rates.

Don't speak too soon.

.