Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Optimizing for another keyword than the menu name
-
Hi
I would like to hear if someone could help me decide whether or not it is important regarding SEO that the menu name is the same as the keyword we want to rank for.
The site is a static site and one of our most important keywords.
To give an example. Our menu name is "cars" and we want to rank for "cheap rental cars".
-
My question was probably not specific enough - sorry.
Example:
Today our top menu could be: "Automobiles" (which is the keyword, that we want to target) But "Cars" is shorter and easier to use, and looks better. There we would like to change it.
Below this we have several pages with: Automobiles inHow much value does it have to have the exact keyword in the main menu of the site?
- the menu is on all pages on our site.
We have several other internal links with anchortext "Automobiles" linking to the page.
-
Hi Kenneth,
Note: it is less important to have the major keywords in the menu....
Think about long tail keywords: if they were all in menu (such as: vacation-houses on the beach) then we would need all the screen only for menu.
Think about targeting the text more closely to the targeted keyword, think about if they seek for cheap car rentals, when they end up on your landing page, does it really provide the right information for them? After you optimize your text and deliver the products on this landing page you are half way done with the optimizing.
Don't try to stuff the text with keywords, use synonyms, make it more readable, provide information.
I believe that the menu name does not influence as much as the content on the specific page; so my advice: work on content more, and worry less on the menu name (that should be used for users and not robots).
I hope that helped,
Istvan
-
If, by menu name, you mean title tag, it is important. If you mean you have a menu with a Main Tab = Cars and below that are several choices: Expensive Rental Cars, Moderate Rental Cars, Cheap Rental Cars, the main tab being cars will not hurt you.
Look at the url : YourSite.com/cars/cheap-rental-carsIf that is how it looks, I see no problem with it. If it looks like this YourSite.com/cars and the thing you want to rank for on the page is cheap-rental-cars that by itself will not help but won't kill you. I would use the cheap-rental-cars and have a title tag that says Cheap Rental Cars | YourSite.com.
Hope this helped you out.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How can a page rank for keywords that it does not have on it?
I have a client that is ranking in the top 10 for several keywords on their homepage. Their site has no purposeful SEO in it, there is barely any text on the homepage at all and none of the text are the keywords it is ranking for.
On-Page Optimization | | woodchuckarts2 -
How many keywords should I optimize a page for?
Hi, There is a lot of debate going on on whether to use a single keyword per page or multiple keywords per page. What I know for sure is that it is not advisable to repeat the same exact keyword in different pages. I need to optimize product pages, categories and pages for an online store and still do not know if it is better to: 1-work with one main keyword per page plus latent semantic keywords, 2-to optimize a page for multiple different keywords (2 to 4 keywords) which are strongly related to the main topic or to the product sold in a particular product page 3- use single keyword for each page (and no more than one keyword per page). Some seo gurus argue this is the best way to get higher ranking for that particular page in the serps. My personal opinion would be 1 or 2, but I would like to hear what you suggest and think about it. Any suggestion or opinion is welcome and appreciated. Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | cinzia090 -
Is it OK to shorten your brand name in your title tags
If your title tag is over 55 characters, is it generally OK or good practice to abbreviate your brand name (at the end of the title tag) for the sake of the other keywords in the tag?
On-Page Optimization | | AliMac261 -
Avoid Keyword Dilution
Hi
On-Page Optimization | | ulefos
I am struggling with keyword dilution, and I don't understand what I need to do to change.I have read it but don't get it. This is the explanation - You want to target each keyword with a single page on your site, so modify the anchor text of this link so it is not an exact match. The only thing that I see is the title and the anchor text the same and the image alt also the same is that what the problem is here is the page I am trying to sort out for the keyword kiln dried logs.
Thank you0 -
Help Please! - Anchor Text in the Menu
Hi everyone, I am a SEOMOZ newbie and I have been learning about SEO for a while now whilst working on my site - lockcity.co.uk - I already understood the importance of anchor text but was amazed to learn how google only count the anchor text used in the first link (http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/anchor-text). My questions are - does this rule still apply? and if so do the menus really count as the first link? If I went on this approach, this would make my menus too long for e.g. on my 'Auto Locksmith' page, my targetted keywords are 'Auto Locksmith' but also the town keywords need to be included. I really thought I had this covered on the home page by making sure the anchor text and alt text were keyword relevant to the link, but looks like Ive been missing out on an opportunity. Our business is slightly complicated in that the 25 mile radius we cover includes 4 different regions - therefore I feel like I always have to get these keywords in as well to make sure we get traffic from our area. Thanks for any advice you can give!
On-Page Optimization | | LockCity0 -
KeyWord Density?
What is an acceptable density for a keyword? It's wise to push it as close to spam without sacrificing user experience, correct? I read an article on SeoMoz (outdated I think) that mentioned 6%. If it's a keyword phrase, do you have to make sure you don't go over the density level of a particular word in the phrase. If it's a three word phrase, do you have to not use any one word more than X% or just monitor the exact keyword.
On-Page Optimization | | JML11791 -
Should you try to rank for misspelled keywords?
Hi there, 2 part question: Is it best practice to try to rank for misspelled keywords that bring in lots of traffic or should you instead just try to rank for the correct spelling of that keyword and hope that you rank better on the misspelling as an indirect result? E.G. The misspelled keyword "Hamilton island accomodation" is a common misspelling that brings in traffic but we have an "F" rank for that term (obviously because we spell accommodation correctly on our site). We don't want to misspell anything but are there techniques to rank better for misspellings that won't hurt content quality? The On-Page Optimization tool says that our website doesn't rank in the top 50 on Google Aus for "Accomodation Hamilton Island" or "Hamilton Island Accomodation" but when i do a manual search, we actually are the first result. Is this an error with the On-Page optimization tool? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | HamiltonIsland0 -
Optimize a PowerPoint presentation
how to SE optimize a PowerPoint presentation on the website? Will it help to upload it to slideshare ?
On-Page Optimization | | intiGrow0