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SEO Your Web Page Title
By Steve Strait
The title of your web page is critical for proper on-page search engine optimization. But, what is the "title tag" and how do we effectively use it to increase our relevance? Here, we will take a quick look at what the title is, how we set it up, and more importantly how we optimize it. The "Title" of your web page is what's displayed at the top of the browser when a user goes to your site. This is also reflected in the browser's tab, is you are using a modern tab-enabled web browser such as Firefox or Safari. The title is also listed in the search engine result page's, also referred to as SERP's. Inside of your web page, this parameter is set with the HTML title tags near the top of the page. Depending on how you create and edit your web pages, changing this title tag is relatively trivial. If you are using one of the popular WYSIWYG applications, such as Dreamweaver, you will see a text box that has Untitled Document in it. This is where you would change the text for your optimized page title. If you are editing the raw HTML, then this is located between the "title" and "/title" tags in your web page. Just to get an idea of how many pages on the Internet have not optimized their titles, try this little experiment. Go to Google and type in "Untitled Document" (with the quotes) and click the Search button. As I write this, I see over 45 million pages that contain that title. A lot of the sites listed in the result pages are businesses. If any of these are your competitor, then you can beat them in the world of SEO. So, what makes a good optimized page title? Like everything in SEO, there is no straightforward answer to this. Each search engine has different rules that it follows. There are some accepted standards to use that will make the major search engines happy. Here a few things to keep in mind when creating your titles: -The title should match the targeted keywords for that page.
-Vary the title of the page according to the keywords on the page.
-Titles should be unique for each page. Don't make the title of every page the same.
-Use natural English in the title.
-Keep the title short. My recommendation is 64 characters or less. But don't sell yourself short either.
-The title should draw people into your web page. Make it appealing. The reason you will want to keep your title short is because of the different standards that are being used. For instance, Google will read up to 66 characters, while Yahoo goes to 120 characters. But, you're also limited to what can be displayed in the browser's window (at the top). For Internet Explorer, it is limited to 95 characters. So, if you follow Yahoo's method of 120 characters, your user isn't seeing the whole thing. The WWW Consortium (W3C) recommends 64 characters, and that will work across the board regardless of what platform or search engine is being used. That is what I usually go with. The same rules about spamming your keywords apply to the title tag as well. Basically, use your page keywords once in the title, and don't simply repeat the keyword over and over up to the 64-character mark. The search engines have mastered the art of detecting the use of spam in the page, including the title. Instead, use a consistent formula for coming up with your titles that includes the targeted keywords for the page. For instance, on your home page use something like "Site Name, Site Tagline, Main Keywords". Then for your content pages, use "Article Name, Page Name, Page Keywords". The further away your pages are from the home page, you will get more detailed and targeted. This is just a recommendation that you can try out. Ideally, you can do some testing on your own to discover the best title formula for your pages. Remember, you are going to optimize each of your pages individually. At a minimum, make sure you are not adding to the 45 million other pages out there labeled as Untitled Document.
This intel first appeared on: http://www.seo-internals.com/seo-your-webpage-title.html
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The copyright for this content entitled "SEO Your Web Page Title" has been specified by the contributor as:
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This content may not be copied, distributed or adapted by anyone under any circumstances.
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This intel was contributed by steve
steve
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May, 2012
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