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should your slug name, title tag and header be the same?

by bigcat1967
13 replies
  • SEO
    • |
should your slug name, title tag and header (main h1 or h2 header) be the same? Or should i mix them up a bit?

Also - would you happen to have any examples of this?

thx
#header #slug #tag #title
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  • Profile picture of the author innateseo
    All of these should be variations, over-optimizing is a thing, and you don't want to do that.

    Good Example:
    Slug - innateseo.com/products/title-tag-helper

    Title Tag - Get you Title Tags right with Innate SEO's Title Tag Helper

    H1 - Need help with your Title Tags

    H2 - This product will change how you META


    You'll notice all of these are related but vary for high readability.
    Other on-page SEO details lie within the alt-image tags, and sparring keyword usage on the page.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeffery
    Originally Posted by bigcat1967 View Post

    should your slug name, title tag and header (main h1 or h2 header) be the same? Or should i mix them up a bit?

    Also - would you happen to have any examples of this?

    thx
    This article answers your question (no affiliation):
    SEO basics How to use headings on your site

    It is important to know that Google's SEO Guy, John Muller, stated last month that Google gives little to no SEO weight pertaining to the tags on a web page (not a website). Google gives "importance" (not weight) to the content on a web page.

    Further stated that the content is for the reader and best practice is to structure (format) the content for both the visitor and SERPs. Also, Google may not show the title in the SERPs and may change the title in the SERPs at its discretion to server user intent.

    Some webmasters use WordPress and a SEO pug-in I recommend: RankMath
    It integrates unobtrusively into the post/page editor and shows you what the SERPs show to searchers. You can edit it and it will give you a score. You can reedit what the searches will see to obtain the highest score and hopefully obtain page 1 in the SERPs.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by Jeffery View Post

      This article answers your question (no affiliation):
      SEO basics How to use headings on your site

      It is important to know that Google's SEO Guy, John Muller, stated last month that Google gives little to no SEO weight pertaining to the tags on a web page (not a website). Google gives "importance" (not weight) to the content on a web page.

      Further stated that the content is for the reader and best practice is to structure (format) the content for both the visitor and SERPs. Also, Google may not show the title in the SERPs and may change the title in the SERPs at its discretion to server user intent.

      Some webmasters use WordPress and a SEO pug-in I recommend: RankMath
      It integrates unobtrusively into the post/page editor and shows you what the SERPs show to searchers. You can edit it and it will give you a score. You can reedit what the searches will see to obtain the highest score and hopefully obtain page 1 in the SERPs.

      Three things.

      1 - I would ignore pretty much anything Yoast has to say about SEO. Places like Yoast and Moz are why so many people are so confused about and struggle with SEO so much.

      2 - I don't think that is what John Mueller meant. I think I saw that video and he was talking about tags that sites like Wordpress let you use on posts. Google absolutely pays attention to title tags. Very heavily in fact.

      3 - RankMath has some potential, but I wouldn't use it on a site you really care about or that is a serious money maker for you. Not yet anyhow. It is just way too buggy. All you have to do is check out there Facebook page and you will see people are constantly having issues with it. Now, I will say they are very good at responding and acting on issues quickly. There have been cases where entire sites have been inaccessible or gone down from some incompatibility with RankMath. That could cost you a lot of money and/or a lot of customers.
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      • Profile picture of the author Jeffery
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Three things.

        1 - I would ignore pretty much anything Yoast has to say about SEO. Places like Yoast and Moz are why so many people are so confused about and struggle with SEO so much.
        Yeah, I too am not a Yoast and Moz fan, but some of the articles are decent in terms of the basics.

        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        2 - I don't think that is what John Mueller meant. I think I saw that video and he was talking about tags that sites like Wordpress let you use on posts. Google absolutely pays attention to title tags. Very heavily in fact.
        Yes, I agree about the title tag and its importance to SEO. I was referring to H1, H2, etc.
        Here are two of the Google Vids I referenced. Nothing about WordPress, but I believe I saw that one too. It is somewhere on my PC.

        Multiple H1 Headings: How to Handle Them for SEO & Accessibility? Oct 3, 2019

        English Google Webmaster Central office-hours from September 27, 2019
        About Multiple H1 Tags

        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        3 - RankMath has some potential, but I wouldn't use it on a site you really care about or that is a serious money maker for you. Not yet anyhow. It is just way too buggy. All you have to do is check out there Facebook page and you will see people are constantly having issues with it. Now, I will say they are very good at responding and acting on issues quickly. There have been cases where entire sites have been inaccessible or gone down from some incompatibility with RankMath. That could cost you a lot of money and/or a lot of customers.

        Good to know, thanks and I'll check it. So far on two of money sites which are membership sites - no problems. I do use WordPress themes that I got from Kezz, ThemeStarta, that are no longer supported, so I'll probably go back to Genesis.
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by Jeffery View Post

          Yeah, I too am not a Yoast and Moz fan, but some of the articles are decent in terms of the basics.



          Yes, I agree about the title tag and its importance to SEO. I was referring to H1, H2, etc.
          Here are two of the Google Vids I referenced. Nothing about WordPress, but I believe I saw that one too. It is somewhere on my PC.

          Multiple H1 Headings: How to Handle Them for SEO & Accessibility? Oct 3, 2019

          English Google Webmaster Central office-hours from September 27, 2019
          About Multiple H1 Tags




          Good to know, thanks and I'll check it. So far on two of money sites which are membership sites - no problems. I do use WordPress themes that I got from Kezz, ThemeStarta, that are no longer supported, so I'll probably go back to Genesis.

          Ah, H tags. Yeah, I have seen John say that. I don't agree though.

          I think what he really wanted to say, and what the evidence points to, is that Google pays attention to headings in content, whether you use H tags or not.

          They can recognize headings by formatting, so even if you are not specifically using H tags, Google looks at things like the font being larger, bold or italicized text, spacing, etc. to recognize a line of text as a heading.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Originally Posted by bigcat1967 View Post

    should your slug name, title tag and header (main h1 or h2 header) be the same? Or should i mix them up a bit?

    Also - would you happen to have any examples of this?

    thx
    You can mix it up a little bit, but don't go crazy. I usually have my title tag be the same thing as the title of the content, which is also usually the first H1 on the page. Sometimes there is a slight variation such as adding a business name on the end of the title tag.

    The URLs are where the biggest variations are on my pages largely because I get rid of words like a, the, an, etc. and if it is a long title I will shorten it up in the URL.
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  • Profile picture of the author deventra
    For Google, it is better that the tags "h" are different from each other.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeffery
      Originally Posted by deventra View Post

      For Google, it is better that the tags "h" are different from each other.

      Not according to Google's John Mueller. Watch the videos posted above. BTW, we are referring to the Original Poster's question about Google SEO and John Mueller is the Google SEO Guy.
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      • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
        Originally Posted by Jeffery View Post

        Not according to Google's John Mueller. Watch the videos posted above. BTW, we are referring to the Original Poster's question about Google SEO and John Mueller is the Google SEO Guy.

        And John Mueller is not always a super reliable source. He has misspoken many times and had to walk things back or was contradicted by other Google team members.
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  • Profile picture of the author RuskinF
    They need to be similar in a limited manner. Overtly similar things would help less to rank your blog in a favorable position.
    Instead, you can try the method explained by innateseo.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lucas21
    It is best practice to keep the title tag and the H1 label the equivalent. ... In any case, on the off chance that you are attempting to make a snappy title that will fill in as an appropriate header and title tag, update the slug, however remember your essential keyword for the two labels.
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  • Profile picture of the author cmsminds
    It is better to use variation of the main keyword in your content at different places. You can use your primary keyword in your title, Slug, and header but it should not be the same sentence. You should use different words and other keywords around to make them unique and user-friendly.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mary Mathew Jen
    Not exactly same, but there are bit changes in all these three actions. A Slug should be user friendly and Title should be limited characters & a Header is the primary thing which defines your services in a simple way.

    So plan according to match all these three actions along with proper keywords which finds to be searched more by a user or a keyword with high search volume. Optimizing these structures helps SERP to crawl our websites, based on the search queries or user finds for a keyword that shows our website first.
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