Creating article titles. For the consumer or search engines?

[jumper]

Is it better to create articles with titles that I think the reader would be interested in, or create it more towards ranking keywords?

 

[Ryuzaki]

This is a false dichotomy. The correct answer is the 3rd answer, which is "both".

There's zero reason you can't write a title that includes your main keyword near the front of it while also enticing the reader to click it by mentioning the benefits of doing so or using curiosity and all that clickbait stuff, too.

If you're stuffing keywords in, that's not good. Just use the main, parent keyword in the title once (that's for the robots) and then the rest is for the people.

Because if you can achieve a higher click through rating in the SERPs than your competitors, that's also better for ranking.

 

[secretagentdad]

The best titles combine relevancy with some sorta item designed to stand out. Performance in lists helps your serps. Google loves putting stuff into lists and testing it around their ecosystem. They also try to measure your performance on 3rd party platforms. Those also tend to amplify stuff that’s performing well.

Stand out. Be topical. Topical word first seems to have performance advantages due to the nature of suggestion engines needing a starting point.

 

[jumper]

This is a false dichotomy. The correct answer is the 3rd answer, which is "both".

There's zero reason you can't write a title that includes your main keyword near the front of it while also enticing the reader to click it by mentioning the benefits of doing so or using curiosity and all that clickbait stuff, too.

If you're stuffing keywords in, that's not good. Just use the main, parent keyword in the title once (that's for the robots) and then the rest is for the people.

Because if you can achieve a higher click through rating in the SERPs than your competitors, that's also better for ranking

So the parent keyword can be blended in the title instead of the front or does it have to be more in the front?

 

[Ryuzaki]

So the parent keyword can be blended in the title instead of the front or does it have to be more in the front?

Closer to the front is better for search engines (a measure of that phrase's prominence and importance to the article) and also for users, as they'll see the keyword being the same phrase or a similar one to the one they searched, and understand quickly that the article is relevant to their interests, which nets you a higher click through rating.

 

[bernard]

I would say keyword in the front of the Title tag is rather important now.

 

[jumper]

Closer to the front is better for search engines (a measure of that phrase's prominence and importance to the article) and also for users, as they'll see the keyword being the same phrase or a similar one to the one they searched, and understand quickly that the article is relevant to their interests, which nets you a higher click through rating.

Do I take the top 100 keywords for that niche and rotate them when I write articles? Or should be the list be like the top 30?

 

[Pagey]

I read some patent Google patents saying that for titles it's important that the main topic be as close as possible to the beginning of the phrase.

Check out Bill Slawski he has some amazing patent analysis that can help you understand how Google works.

 

[jumper]

I've read SEO by the Sea before (not sure if I trust Google), but I found articles where they tested thousands of pages and came up with interesting results. Here is an example:

https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking

They said this:

6. The vast majority of title tags in Google exactly or partially match the keyword that they rank for. However, we found essentially zero correlation between using a keyword in your title tag and higher rankings on the first page.

I asked the question where to place the keyword, since I rather lean on experience than published patents or studies like this. I am writing articles for the reader and not for the robots. I will try to build a brand and spread by search engines and word-of-mouth. Whether it works is a different story.