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SEO Question: Blog Titles vs. Blog URLs and their effectiveness

UserPost

7:05 am
January 30, 2011


Financial Samurai

Admin

posts 1803

Hi Folks,

Hope all is well.  I've been wondering about this question for a while. 

What is better for search: Having a title which will contain all the search words or having a URL that contains all the search words? 

When we search, it's always the article TITLES that show up in the Google search box and not the URL.  Yet, I've read it's important to have a relevant and short (3-4 word) URL title.

Share your thoughts!

Cheers,

Sam

Regards,

 

Sam

Financial Samurai - Helping you achieve financial freedom sooner, rather than later.

Yakezie Network Founder 

7:20 am
January 30, 2011


JT_McGee

Member

posts 723

Titles are wayyyyy more important, in fact, they're probably the single most important element.  As for the rest, here's my list for most important from the most to least important: header tags (h2/h3/h4 etc), url structure, <strong> words,  img tags/names.

 Links range from top to bottom, depending on their quality.  A link from the Yahoo homepage would be #1, where a link from your weird cousin's Geocities account isn't worth anything.

JT McGee – MoneyMamba

URL: MoneyMamba.com 

Twitter: @JT_McGee

Recent Post: Are We Halfway Through Our Lost Decade? (4 Charts Inside)

7:31 am
January 30, 2011


Mike – Saving Money Today

Member

posts 520

Hey Sam,

I agree with JT that Titles are extremely important…URL structure is another factor that should be considered too though so if you get the keywords in both that's the best option.

7:50 am
January 30, 2011


Derek@LifeAndMyFinances

Member

posts 1298

Since I have started focusing on SEO, I have noticed that titles make a dramatic impact on showing up in a Google search (more so than the URL). But, another big factor is the credibility of your site. If you have no pages linking to your site, you won't show up on the first few search pages of Google.

Derek @ Life And My Finances 

Website: http://www.LifeAndMyFinances.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/LAMFinances

Email: derek@lifeandmyfinances.com

9:25 am
January 30, 2011


The College Investor

San Diego, CA

Admin

posts 1935

Both are important, but I do believe titles take the lead.  Here is an example from my site.  If you search for "FedLoan Servicing" you get my site right below their website on page 1.  Google highlights in bold your search terms to essentially highlight why this particular site matches your search.  As you can see, Google bolded both the Title and the URL for the page.

 

FedLoan Search

Please check out The College Investor at http://thecollegeinvestor.com!  This is the home of my Investing 101 Class.

Ready to Take Your Blog To The Next Level: http://beatthe9to5.com

You can also follow on Twitter @CollegeInvestin or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/thecol…..geinvestor!

3:13 pm
January 30, 2011


Buy Like Buffett

Member

posts 1682

I think that titles are even more important than the URL's.

 

 

Mark

Learn how to build wealth at Buy Like Buffett.

Learn about making money online at Mark Riddix dot com

Follow me on Twitter

7:43 pm
January 30, 2011


My Personal Finance Journey

Member

posts 3159

I agree – titles more important than blog url's

Jacob @ My Personal Finance Journey

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7:48 am
January 31, 2011


Khaleef @ KNS Financial

Fat Guy, Skinny Wallet

Member

posts 3149

I agree with everyone about titles being much more important. However, I will add that I have been using Market Samurai recently and they have a feature that dissects the top 10 links in Google for your keyword. They look to see if the title, header tags, descriptions, and URL contain the keyword – so it must be very important in the eyes of Google.

Khaleef "Fat Guy" Crumbley

My Battle to Lose 100lbs and Pay off $100k in Debt:

http://fatguyskinnywallet.com

http://twitter.com/FGSW

http://www.facebook.com/fatguy…..innywallet

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10:11 am
January 31, 2011


TightFistedMiser

Member

posts 361

I wouldn't underestimate the effecitiveness of a blog url.  A niche site I'm developing ranks on the first page of Google for the url keywords even though it has almost no content or backlinks yet.  It is obviously ranking on the URL alone.

2:18 pm
February 3, 2011


Tim

Guest

A lot of great advice here!  I'll now be focusing more on titles – not that I wasn't before…I just hadn't realized how important they really are. 

3:20 pm
February 5, 2011


Sunil from The Extra Money Blog

Member

posts 362

def titles because they are part of your meta data and the first to be read by search engine spiders/robots. however, including your target keyword in your url is quite important as well.

example:

 

target keyword: red roses

title: Learn About Red Roses and Much More

url:  www.xyz.com/red-roses.html

 

another note, when designing URLs, ensure it is a dash yo use to separate words instead of underscores.  dashes are treated as spaces by search engine robots.

The Extra Money Blog– Expedited Wealth Building Through Multiple Streams of Active & Passive Income (Entrepreneurship, Internet Marketing, Personal Finance)

7:44 am
February 8, 2011


The Journalist

Member

posts 8

I believe having your keywords in your domain name ie URL ranks very highly for google, maybe even more so that your title.

2:40 pm
February 8, 2011


Barbara Friedberg

Member

posts 1302

TightFistedMiser said:

I wouldn't underestimate the effecitiveness of a blog url.  A niche site I'm developing ranks on the first page of Google for the url keywords even though it has almost no content or backlinks yet.  It is obviously ranking on the URL alone.


THat is fascinating… What's the title of the site?

6:39 am
February 9, 2011


The Financial Blogger

Member

posts 429

Here's how I see it:

 

example: 

let's say you want to rank for the keyword "First Time Mortgage"

 

best way to write your title is: First Time Mortgage: 5 Tricks To Buy Your House

your keyword is the first thing in your title, so Google will get more attention.

 

url structure: first-time-mortgage-tricks

you get only relevant keywords coming from your title. So google can track the url and identify your keyword right away

 

in the first paragraph: include again "first time mortgage"

Google bots will give more importance to words inside the first paragraph. It makes sense since you should announce what your post is about in the very first line of your article, right?

 

additional tricks: read my thread

I have written a thread on SEO on the yakezie forum, this should help you out ranking for your keywords:

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog…..38;ret=all

 

cheers,

 

Mike

7:00 am
February 10, 2011


Alan – MoneySanity.com

Philadelphia, PA

Member

posts 26

The Financial Blogger said:

Here's how I see it:

 

example: 

let's say you want to rank for the keyword "First Time Mortgage"

 

best way to write your title is: First Time Mortgage: 5 Tricks To Buy Your House

your keyword is the first thing in your title, so Google will get more attention.

 

url structure: first-time-mortgage-tricks

you get only relevant keywords coming from your title. So google can track the url and identify your keyword right away

 

in the first paragraph: include again "first time mortgage"

Google bots will give more importance to words inside the first paragraph. It makes sense since you should announce what your post is about in the very first line of your article, right?

 

additional tricks: read my thread

I have written a thread on SEO on the yakezie forum, this should help you out ranking for your keywords:

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog…..38;ret=all

 

cheers,

 

Mike

 

Mike, Great stuff. If you haven't already you should consider a blog about blogging.

Thanks!

 

Alan


Alan @ Money Sanity

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Website:  http://moneysanity.com

Email:  moneysanity@gmail.com

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2:14 pm
February 23, 2011


The Wall Street Chalkboard (Jeff)

Member

posts 85

Can someone tell me why my SEO sucks. When I get visits from search engines, most of them are from google images, or international visitors. I currently use the all in one seo package, but I haven't had much success.

http://wallstreetchalkboard.com

providing insightful analysis at a friendly blog

7:39 pm
February 23, 2011


theycallmecheap

Washington, D.C.

Member

posts 77

The Financial Blogger said:

Here's how I see it:

 

example: 

let's say you want to rank for the keyword "First Time Mortgage"

 

best way to write your title is: First Time Mortgage: 5 Tricks To Buy Your House

your keyword is the first thing in your title, so Google will get more attention.

 

url structure: first-time-mortgage-tricks

you get only relevant keywords coming from your title. So google can track the url and identify your keyword right away

 

in the first paragraph: include again "first time mortgage"

Google bots will give more importance to words inside the first paragraph. It makes sense since you should announce what your post is about in the very first line of your article, right?

 

additional tricks: read my thread

I have written a thread on SEO on the yakezie forum, this should help you out ranking for your keywords:

http://yakezie.com/forums/blog…..38;ret=all

 

cheers,

 

Mike


Great advice, Mike. Thanks for sharing! I don't do a ton of SEO stuff for my blog at the moment, but I've been wanting to do more. I hadn't considered how important it is to have my keyword phrase appear in the introduction to my posts.

Shawanda Greene

Blog: YouHaveMoreThanYouThink.org – "A reality check to financial freedom."

Twitter: @TheyCallMeCheap

Email: TheyCallMeCheap@gmail.com 

8:53 pm
February 23, 2011


JT_McGee

Member

posts 723

The Wall Street Chalkboard (Jeff) said:

Can someone tell me why my SEO sucks. When I get visits from search engines, most of them are from google images, or international visitors. I currently use the all in one seo package, but I haven't had much success.


Really, even if you did everything 100% by the book, the fact that your site is <1 year old is the killer.  Google values the age of the site more than is probably reasonable.  Trust me, you'll see serious jumps at the 6, 12 and 24 month old mark.  Google rewards those who have been around awhile, and does so generously.

JT McGee – MoneyMamba

URL: MoneyMamba.com 

Twitter: @JT_McGee

Recent Post: Are We Halfway Through Our Lost Decade? (4 Charts Inside)

3:23 pm
February 24, 2011


The Wall Street Chalkboard (Jeff)

Member

posts 85

JT,

Thanks for the info. I've been getting more SEO hits from one of my posts regarding high oil prices and industries that would prosper from this event. Hopefully my search engine hits continue to increase as my site ages.

http://wallstreetchalkboard.com

providing insightful analysis at a friendly blog

3:59 pm
February 24, 2011


TightFistedMiser

Member

posts 361

Barb Friedberg said:

TightFistedMiser said:

I wouldn't underestimate the effecitiveness of a blog url.  A niche site I'm developing ranks on the first page of Google for the url keywords even though it has almost no content or backlinks yet.  It is obviously ranking on the URL alone.


THat is fascinating… What's the title of the site?
 


Sorry for the delay in replying.  The site is infraredheaterscam.com.  It was on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and Bing for quite a while but it has now fallen to the third page of Google.  That is probably because I've never gotten around to adding more content.  I think it could have made decent money if I had gotten around to adding more content and developing links.  I still made a couple of affiliate sales even with very little traffic.  I suppose I can develop it now to take advantage of next winter.

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