How important are geographical terms in titles/headings?

[JaredCaraway]

It seems like Google is smart enough at this point to evaluate the content of a site and determine what geo areas are served by the organization.

Is the practice of including geographical terms in the title (Artisan Widgets | Houston Widgetry | Widgets 'R' Us) still viable, or is it better to use that limited real estate for more descriptive keywords (Artisan Widgets | Industrial Gizmos | Widgets 'R' Us), leaving the geolocation up to Google?

 

[hajnasiewicz]

Our approach (grocery/supermarket industry) has been to apply descriptive keywords, help to describe what the page is about. The exception is for individual grocery store location pages, where we will insert the location address. Can't say that this is the defacto standard for all but has withstood the test of time for us. (200 grocery locations, 10 business names, across 8 States in the upper midwest US).

 

[Forseti]

See what tactics your competitors have chosen (explicit or potential). And to conclude from this. But I believe that the obvious is always better than the hope that you will be understood.

 

[nmosier85]

I will typically add the location to the title tag, most specifically on a location page, as Forseti said, it's best not to leave that up to chance.