keywords

If you’re finding that your website is just not getting the traffic you think it should have, or perhaps your website isn’t showing up in search results, the Title tags of your pages could be the problem. Title tags are the most important aspect of any Search Engine Optimization campaign (a close second is well written content, and lots of it). Before we explain how to write an effective title tag that gets clicks, we need to review what a Title tag is and where it appears in search engines.

What the heck is a Title tag?

The title tag is an HTML title element that is crucial not only to SEO, but also to the user experience. Title tags are used to briefly and accurately describe the topic of an online document. Effective title tags get attention from search engines and visitors.

Where is the Title tag?

You can find the Title tag in a few different places.

1. In the source code.

Go to any webpage and view the source code. A few lines from the top, you will see this element:

Social Media Agency : SEO Agency : Inbound Marketing - Maine, NH, Boston

2. In the browser bar and browser tabs.

3. In search results

How to Write Title Tags – Best Practices

Keep it Short

The optimal length for a Title tag is less than 70 characters. Notice in the image above that the title is truncated (“…”) – it’s a tad bit too long, so Google is only showing the first 68 or so characters.

Put Primary Keyword Phrases First

Single keywords in a Title are never a good idea. Their too broad, you won’t rank for them, and your title will look like a string of keywords. It’s best to try to use 2-3 keyword phrases that accurately describe that page.

If your brand is the most important element, put your brand name first.

Brand Name – Keyword Phrase 1 – Keyword Phrase 2

If you’re more concerned about ranking for a certain keyword phrase, put it first.

Keyword Phrase 1 – Keyword Phrase 2 – Brand Name

If you only sell to a local area, be sure to include the Geo in the tag.

Keyword Phrase 1 – Geo Location – Brand Name

Keep it Relevant

Don’t get caught up in keyword rankings. If your site is well written, has lots of great content, you will be found. Be sure to write your title tag to accurately represent the content of that page. Google is all about relevancy. Your Title tag must accurately correlate to your page content.

Home Page

Every page of your website should have a unique Title tag. The home page typically has the most ranking power, hence, use your primary keyword phrases in the Title of the home page and in the content of the page itself. The home page introduces your company to the world, so it’s important that the keyword phrases are wisely chosen.

Examples for an online chocolate chip cookie company:
Good Title: Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies – Order Cookies Online – Cookies-R-Us

OK Title: Chocolate Chip Cookies by Cookies-R-Us

Bad Title: Cookies-R-Us

Bad Title: Welcome to Cookies-R-Us

Bad Title: Cookies, Cookies, Cookies

Really Bad Title: Home

Internal Pages

The internal web pages of your site are supporting pages. You may have pages that get very specific, like a Product page, or that are more generic, like an About Us page. Using the same structure as the Home page, an internal page Title tag may read like this:

Star Shaped Chocolate Chip Cookies by Cookies-R-Us – Order Online

Final Thoughts on Title Tags

When writing your Title tag, don’t write it just for the purpose of getting rankings on Google. While rankings are important, a Title tag that matches the content of that page is more important. As your web pages rise and fall in the rankings, it’s important to tweak your Title tags occasionally to make them more click-able, or tryout different keywords. Don’t be afraid of change here. Change is important with SEO.

There you have it! Have questions on Title tags? Need help optimizing your site? Just ask!

Keywords, the most important aspect of any SEO campaign. But keywords in and of themselves don’t matter at all if the wrong ones are chosen for optimization. Understanding how to choose the right keywords for your website, and your niche market, is crucial. Choose the wrong keywords and your site may never be found by those that will actually purchase from you.

Before you start researching potential keyword phrases, let’s talk about what you shouldn’t do. First, save industry terms for your printed brochure, not your Title tag. Your potential client searching on the web for your type of product or service is totally unaware that you call the synthetic blue widgets you make “SynWidgers”.

Next, don’t assume you know what your audience is searching for. Unless you have a crystal ball, there is no way for you to know exactly what your visitors are searching for and how often. Hence, keyword research tools are your friend.We’ll talk more about those in a minute.

And, finally, don’t try to rank for single keywords or very broad keyword phrases. I’m telling you right now, you will NEVER rank for “business software,” or “white paper,” or “real estate agent”. Your goal is to find targeted keyword phrases that your potential client is actually using.

So now that we know what not to do, let’s discuss what to do.

1. Start with a brainstorm list. This is where you do sit down and think of all the possible keyword phrases a visitor will use to find your site. Remember, this is not the final list, so we aren’t breaking our 2nd commandment. We’re just giving ourselves a starting point.

2. Next, get to know your keyword research tools. We use a variety of tools when conducting keyword research. Each have their pros and cons, so you have to decide which to use, or if you want to use a variety of tools.

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool
• Keyword Discovery
• Wordtracker
• Google Suggest
• Thesaurus.com – to name a few…

3. Plug your brainstorm list into one (or more) of these tools. The key is to not only look at the average monthly searches, but you want to look at the competition as well. Understanding the competitiveness of a keyword is crucial. The more competitive a phrase is, the harder it will be to rank for it.

4. Do an actual search for the keyword phrase in Google. Now look at the top 10 results. Are the sites in the top 10 relevant to your industry? Do you see some competitors listed? How do these top 10 use the keyword phrase? Is it in the title alone; in both title and description? How many inbound links does that domain have? In other words, analyze the results and cross out the phrases that aren’t ideal.

5. Finalize the list. Now that we crossed out words that are overly competitive or irrelevant, it’s time to look at your list and compare it to the content on your website. Do you have the content needed to rank for that phrase? If you do not, then put those words on a separate list until you do. For example, you may really want your site to rank for “blue suede shoes” because that keyword phrase has a high search volume and a low enough competition volume. However, you haven’t made blue suede shoes yet, and right now are only offering “brown suede shoes.” If you optimize your site for blue suede shoes, but the visitor does not see those on your website, then you may drive traffic, but it will be traffic with a high bounce rate.

6. Optimize your site! Choose one to two keyword phrases per page and include your keywords in the copy, Title tag, meta Description, header tags, alt text, and anchor text of internal links.

7. Monitor your progress and rinse and repeat. Keyword research is never finished. To really be successful, you have to keep an eye on how keywords change as far as search volume, competitiveness, and those that drive traffic and convert to sales.

I think this question has been asked ever since the dawn of Google. Website owner after website owner have pondered over this question, while SEO after SEO have tried to give a definitive answer.

Recently, the good folks over at Search Engine Roundtable released the results to their April 1st poll: “How Long Should it Take to Rank Well on Google?” Out of the over two-hundred respondents, the largest response was 3-6 months (35%), followed by 6-9 months (19%). In my experience, a well-optimized website will take approximately 3-6 months to rank well. A website that has not been optimized at all….never!

Three to six months for a site to rank well on Google may seem like a long time to the anxious website owner who really wants to prove their site a success. However, with millions upon millions of websites trying to rank on the first page of the SERPs (search engine results pages), it takes that amount of time for Google to revisit your web pages enough times to build up the trust factor. Also, Google looks at many different factors of a web page in order to give it high rankings in SERPs. And, those factors change all the time – which can seem to be a bit unfair to even the most diligent of webmasters.

Such factors that Google takes into account include:

• Age of the domain
• Use of keywords in the Title tag
• Relevancy of keywords in the body text
• Link popularity of the site (or web page in question)
• Anchor text used in inbound link
• Relevance of inbound links
• Quality of content & freshness of content

Google also looks at factors that may negatively affect a website. These factors include:

• Duplicate title/meta description tags
• Errors in site code which distracts search engine spiders
• Duplicate content of any kind
• Participation in link farms or link schemes
• Keyword stuffing (basically overusing keyword phrases)
• Keywords in Title do not match content
• Hidden keywords
• Disobeying any of Google rules (see Google’s webmaster guidelines)

One thing that I have learned in my many years of optimizing websites. A website is only as good as those who maintain it. I’ve also learned that once you get the hang of what Google likes, they change the rules. However, with all this said, it doesn’t matter how well a website ranks on Google. What matters is the visitor.

As a professional SEO who has done optimized a ton of websites for various industries – this is what I suggest.

• Have a plan – what do you want visitors to do when they land on your site
• Know your audience and produce well-written, useful content for them
• Make it easy for visitors to find what they are looking for – don’t hide important information
• Make your calls-to-action prominent and consistent
• Maintain your content – if a product or service changes, update your site accordingly

So instead of worrying how long it takes to rank well on Google. Start thinking about your visitor and what is important to them. Afterall, your in business to get business from humans, not search engines.

Not sure if your site meets Google’s (or Patti’s) guidelines. Contact us for a complimentary website review.

Aaron Wall is my favorite SEO guru. His blog is always chock-full of great information – and I just love reading it. Well, today, as I was scanningmy inbox, I came across a link to a new keyword ranking tool: http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/. I saw the words “seobook” and “firefox” and just had to click.

The Rank Checker will check how your keywords rank on Google, Yahoo, and MSN Live Search – nationally or internationally. The tool also has an export to CVS feature which makes tracking monthly rankings very easy.

Thank you to Aaron Wall and Firefox for collaborating to make a great, and VERY useful tool.