Role of Keywords in Title

[ShaneHunter]

Hey Guys!

First thread... I heard through a few associates that this is the place to be for aspiring seo's.

My question to you, the super-pro's is:

How big of a role, in your experience, have you found keywords to play in SERP's?

For example, I'm trying to rank for "San Diego SEO"

My website is www.san-diego-seo.org

A secondary question, how big of a detriment are the dashes in my url to SERP's?

[Tiggerito]

Dashes may even help your URL as it helps the search engines (and people) determine what the keywords are.

A good example is "Experts Exchange" which could have been interpreted as "Expert sEx change" if they didn't have dashes in their domain.

And I find keywords in the title do have a large effect. Don't spam though. Remember your title is shown in search results and so should be attractive to people.

[digital29]

Keywords in the title are very important, but keywords in the url/domain are way more important. If they are long tail or not so competitive, you could get nr.1 for a keyword that is included in the domain without doing anything

[SEOArbiter]

On-page SEO definitely plays a role in your rankings. Put one, no more than two, keywords in the title. And, Be sure to place your keyword(s) within the headlines of your website.

[mjtaylor]

Keywords in the title are very important, but keywords in the url/domain are way more important. If they are long tail or not so competitive, you could get nr.1 for a keyword that is included in the domain without doing anything

Can you substantiate that? A poll of SEO Experts would suggest otherwise:

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

Top 5 Ranking Factors

1.
Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links
73% very high importance
73%
2.
External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)
71% very high importance
71%
3.
Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)
67% very high importance
67%
4.
Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
66% very high importance
66%
5.
Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)
66% very high importance

[bold my addition]

[janeth]

Can you substantiate that? A poll of SEO Experts would suggest otherwise:

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors

[bold my addition]

It looks like he said that it was very important. And your poll shows it as being very important.

Where's the problem?

[mjtaylor]

It looks like he said that it was very important. And your poll shows it as being very important.

Where's the problem?

I believe he said that keywords in domains are more important than in the title.

[janeth]

I believe he said that keywords in domains are more important than in the title.

It looks like he said url/domain, and I'd say they are also very important. Maybe even more important or as important.

[mjtaylor]

And you are welcome to your opinion, but apparently the experts don't agree with you. The article I linked to makes it pretty clear.

The truth is neither you nor I, nor experts more knowledgeable than we know for a fact which is more important, but I like to err on the side of those who clearly know more than I do.

[janeth]

And you are welcome to your opinion, but apparently the experts don't agree with you. The article I linked to makes it pretty clear.

The truth is neither you nor I, nor experts more knowledgeable than we know for a fact which is more important, but I like to err on the side of those who clearly know more than I do.

I've learned that most experts don't have a clue what they are talking about, so I don't put a lot into what they have to say.

The reason having the keyword in the URL helps more than having the keyword in the title is pretty simple.

There are times when sites will link to you with your URL only, by having the keyword in your URL you get the anchor with the keyword you want to rank for.

Now, where did they rank anchor text?