Site title/SEO question

Jeff Fuqua

Well-known member
My forum was always on the first two pages on Google for "Tennessee Titans" and dropped to around 12 just recently. I'm curious as to the cause of this and have been looking at options.

Would it help to change my board title from "goTitans.com" to "goTitans.com | Tennessee Titans Fan Site"?

I also wondered if it would help to have "goTitans.com" appear in the title tab of every page. For example, when submitting this thread, the tab says "Create Thread | XenForo Community". For my site now, I just get "Create Thread".

I'm just looking at options which might help. Thanks for any suggestions in advance.
 
I would remove the url altogether and just go with "Tennessee Titans Fan Site" and your board name.
Also I'd check the google keyword too to make sure that's the best option for you, maybe "Tennessee Titans Forum" or "Tennessee Titans Fans" might be better.
 
what is the reason for removing the URL ?
what's the reason in keeping it?

If people do search for mysite.com, they'll most likely find it anyways or just type the url in the browser.
I'd focus my title tag on more important keywords that will deliver more traffic and still explain what the site is about.
You wouldn't normally have mysite.com is all your h1 tags, why would you want it in your title tag.

Also..
I remove the board name from all titles other then the home page anyways to help focus on my longtail search.
 
Interesting. Do you think I can have the site name and then the keywords or is it more effective to keep your title short?

Also, any ideas on how to get the site name in every thread title on the tab as it is here?
 
It's always best to have the first words in the title be the same or similar words that people would type into the search engine. If they know your URL, they'll type it. Hence why this post is spot on:

I would remove the url altogether and just go with "Tennessee Titans Fan Site" and your board name.
Also I'd check the google keyword too to make sure that's the best option for you, maybe "Tennessee Titans Forum" or "Tennessee Titans Fans" might be better.
 
This is by default.
This is what I was talking about, I actually removed the board title from all pages but the home page by editing the page_container template to help with long tail searches.
Hmmm... I removed the board title from all pages just because I didn't think it looked good with the header just above it. So that's why it isn't showing up in the tabs?
 
I'm just a bit confused. My board name is goTitans. So should I use "Tennessee Titans Fan Site" or "goTitans | a Tennessee Titans Fan Site"?
neither to be honest..

https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool


ttf.webp

I'd play around with different options, change forum out for community or discussion board.
Try removing an S, adding an S to your words.
See what will give you the best chances for searches. To be honest, the 210 is still low in the example I mentioned, but it's better then the zero.
 
Hmmm... I removed the board title from all pages just because I didn't think it looked good with the header just above it. So that's why it isn't showing up in the tabs?
You didn't remove the board title from the title tag, you may have removed it from your H1 tag, which isn't good either.
There was a thread here not to long ago where code was shared to just hide the H1 tag via CSS, that's the best approach for that particular question.
 
You didn't remove the board title from the title tag, you may have removed it from your H1 tag, which isn't good either.
There was a thread here not to long ago where code was shared to just hide the H1 tag via CSS, that's the best approach for that particular question.
I'm guessing that is what I did. I'll run a search for more info.
 
Thanks for all your help.

I need to figure out what I deleted so I can get the title back into the tabs, then, go with the the extra.css edit.

For the record, just changing my title has me back on page one already. That's amazing.
 
To follow up, I found the template I had edited (forum_list) and replaced the {$xenOptions.boardTitle} between the H1 tags. It added the title back there but it didn't for the tabs.

Anyone know the template which puts the board title on browser tags? Thanks.
 
Thanks but I'm still not having any luck.

I see {$xenOptions.boardTitle} in page_container so I didn't remove it though the template has been altered in some way along with the page_container_js_head since it's red. I went to the default page_container template and copied/pasted over the active one and nothing changed.

I'm not very technically savvy so am at a loss. I can go into the admin pages and the board title shows up in the tab.
 
Thanks again for all your help.

One last question... will adding my site name/key words to every thread, what's new?, etc. help with SEO? I can add this to every template if so or, if it'll have minimal impact, I probably won't bother.
 
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