Clients often ask me the following question: “What’s the #1 mistake companies make in terms of SEO?”
The answer is simple and yet counterintuitive for most business owners: Believing that your company name should come first on the site.
Of course this is a logical assumption, you want your customers to remember your name, and you want to get your name in front of potential prospects. Yet, believe it or not, the biggest failure companies make in terms of SEO is the misuse of the title tag. Too often, every page of a company’s website will begin the title tag with the company’s name: Company Name | Products or Company Name | Categories
Using the company name at the beginning of every title tag is a waste of space. Google places tremendous emphasis on the beginning words of title tags. When searchers find your company’s listings pop up in Google, most of them could care less about your company name. Placing your company name first actually wastes valuable SEO real estate unless you have a strong brand presence like DeBeers and your name is synonymous with a product, which will increase your click through rate if someone is looking for diamonds. If you’re not DeBeers or Coca-Cola, but still determined to get your name in the title tag, try this arrangement: product first, then company name at the end of the tag, e.g. Products | Company Name
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excellent point! and the lack of creativity on title tags stems from not having a clear SEO or content marketing plan. a little competitive research and media planning around buyer personas (your customer) and shared interest goes a long way. time to stop thinking in terms of corporate branding and brochures and more like a niche magazine editor.
Thanks activate. Too many times the marketing department in charge of the offline brochure is put in charge of the online brochure.
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