Title Tags

Title tags are a VERY important part of an SEO campaign, more important than most people realize. The importance of a well thought out Title tag on each page of your site is two-fold.

A. A good Title tag is an effective way to optimize your page and improve your search engine rankings. Search engines will read keywords from your tag and use the tag to help set a theme for your page.

B. A well written title tag will encourage users to click on your site. If you take a look at Google and Yahoo search results, you’ll notice that the page title is the copy that the engines use as the link into your site. If you optimize your tags for rankings, but ignore this fact - you’re losing out on traffic.

The title should be the first tag in the HEAD section on your html code. I make sure that the Title uses my main keyword phrase as close to the beginning of the tag as possible. I then finish the tag with some enticing copy that trys to tell the user, who is looking at it in the search engines, that *this* is what they are looking for.

I try to keep the tag between 50 and 70 characters (including spaces) - this is based on Yahoo’s best practices guide for their Search Submit Pro product. Also, avoid using “stop” words like and, home page, the, etc. - these are just fluff words that the engines will ignore anyhow.

If you want to see Title tags that work, do a search for your keyword and take a look at what pages are at the top of the results. And, just as importantly, take some time to think about which titles make you want to click on them.


Tagged as: SEO, Optimization Tips