seo

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.

People ask me all the time how their website can get higher rankings on Google. Perhaps they are the website owner, a CEO, or a Marketing Director. Somewhere down the line they’ve been told that websites that rank #1 on Google get tons of traffic and are hugely successful. Maybe you’ve even thought this. It’s not uncommon, but is a huge misnomer.

Yes, first page rankings, especially those above the fold (positions 1-5), are important, but aren’t everything.

Hypothetically, let’s say your website ranks #1 on Google for a very competitive term in your industry. Let’s also say that 85% of visitors who see your #1 listing click through to your website (this would be extremely high by the way). Now what?

When visitors land on your website, what should they do next?

Before you ask, “how can we get first page rankings on Google?”, ask yourself (or your marketing department, or your CEO) these questions:

1. What is the goal of our website?
   Hence, when a visitor lands on your website, what should they do next? Sign up for a newsletter, buy a product, share your content?
2. What is our content strategy?
   Without content, there are no rankings essentially. How often will you update the content on your website? How often will you add fresh content to your website? Who will write and add the content? Is our content original and relevant?
3. Do we understand what our visitors want?
   Do you know which search phrases your visitors will use to search for similar products or services? Do we know what they expect when they land on our site?
4. What makes our site better than our competitors?
   In other words, what makes your site unique?

Again, stop trying to achieve a number one slot on Google. Instead, spend your time and effort on what really matters … the visitor experience.

I often hear stories from frustrated Marketing Managers who are responsible for SEO for the company website. They’re constantly asked by their CEO why their website is not ranking on Google and why website traffic has not increased, and so on and so on.

Most recently I visited a client who has multiple marketers responsible for optimizing different portions of the corporate website. These marketers have to report back each month to their department heads with stats on keyword rankings and traffic to their specific web pages. Month after month, they are frustrated to see that traffic from Google is very low.

During the meeting I clicked through some pages of their website, looked at their Google Analytics, and did a few keyword searches. It was clear that the website had taken a back seat to other priorities. The marketing team even admitted that they push SEO to the bottom of their ever growing task list.

If your company also operates this way, here are my top 5 reasons why businesses should outsource SEO:

1. SEO Agency’s make optimizing your website a priority.
   SEO is a process with many different moving parts. While SEO isn’t hard to do, it is time consuming. It may take your marketing team months to write a few title tags. While by hiring a dedicated SEO Agency, you can rest easy knowing that your website SEO will take top priority each month.
2. SEO Agency’s keep abreast of important search engine updates that may affect your websites performance.
   Google makes over 500 updates to their algorithm each year. Some of the updates are minuscule, while others are major and may affect how your website ranks in search engines. Just look at the May Day update, Google Caffeine, and Personalized Search.
3. Your Marketing team doesn’t have time to learn SEO.
   Search engine optimization is an evolving industry. New or improved techniques are discovered all the time. Your marketing team may have learned the basics of SEO, but probably won’t have time to learn the advanced techniques. SEO agencies stay abreast of all the current tactics that can benefit your website.
4. Your Marketing team does not have interest in learning SEO.
   I’ve been doing SEO now for 10 years. SEO is what I love to do – yes, I’m a nerd like that. I was once an in-house marketing person who was responsible for SEO. I happened to really enjoy it and made it my career. However, I’ve met so many marketers who hate SEO, they just do it because it’s one of their responsibilities. Hence, the company’s website performance suffers for it.
5. Your company will save money and see an increase in ROI by outsourcing SEO.
   Seriously, you will. According to Indeed.com, the average salary of a Marketing Communications Manager is $66k/yr. On average, a one-year SEO campaign with an agency could cost anywhere between $12k – $36k or higher, depending on target geographical location, competition level, industry and other factors. When you figure in your cost per lead, etc., you will soon see your ROI is greater with an SEO agency.

Outsourcing SEO may not make sense for every business. However, it does make sense if you find yourself in a situation like my client… too many cooks in the kitchen and no recipe to follow.

For all of you who could not make it to the Inbound Marketing Summit 2010 last week, I was a participant on the “Driving More Qualified Leads into Your Funnel” on day 2. Chris Brogan lead the discussion for the panel that included myself (Patti Fousek), Mike Damphouse the CEO/CMO of Green Leads, Benjamin Diggles the Agency Channel Sales of Webtrends,  and Bernie Brogan the CEO of Find and Convert.

Google Instant, released a few weeks back, has received lots of mixed reviews. Some hate it, some love it, while some are still undecided. Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with Google Instant. Here’s why.

Why I hate Google Instant

1. Seeing the search results page (SERP) change three or four times as I type makes me dizzy.
2. I don’t like it when anyone (even Google) tries to predict what’s on my mind.
3. Patience is a virtue, even for search.
4. The possibility that GI will increase impressions, hence lowering click-through-rate annoys me.

Why I love Google Instant

1. No longer need to hit “enter” on the keyboard – the search results are right there.
2. It’s super fast.
3. It gives me something to do when I’m bored.

What do you think of Google Instant?

We’ve been hearing about personalized search since 2007. We’ve even seen some advancements from Google in 2008 with the launch of the SearchWiki. To make even more advancements with personalized search, earlier in December, 2009 Google announced that they made even more enhancements. Now, whether a searcher is signed in to Google or not, their search results will be “personalized” just for them based on their web history.

So what exactly does this mean for the website owner? Take your keyword rankings with a grain of salt. After all, what you see in search results may not be what searchers see (unless personalization is turned off). Instead, pay close attention to your analytic data to see how your website performs as a whole. The basics of search engine optimization still hold true. Keyword selection and optimized titles, meta descriptions, and website copy are still super important. But for total SEO success, website owners should also concentrate on:

1. Web design and usability.
   Create a website that uses clean, up-to-date code and easily sends your visitor to a call-to-action. If your website is old, or possibly new, but designed by an inexperienced web designer, it is in your best interest to invest in a new website.
2. Web page load times.
   Slow loading web pages could mean lower rankings all together. There are many factors that affect a page load time (too many images, large images, hosting bandwidth etc.). You should talk to your webmaster if you feel your webpages do load slowly.
3. Visitor bounce rates.
   If your bounce rate is above 50% for any given page, then look at the content of that page. Does your copy say too little, or is there too much copy on that page? What about the calls-to-action? Is your message clear? The longer a visitor stays on a website, the more apt they are to make a buying decision.
4. Fresh content.
   Is your content being updated on a regular basis? If not, your website will suffer. It’s been known for some time that Google wants to show the most relevant search results to the searcher. If your content is stagnant, well, then it’s not relevant. Keep it updated, fresh, and relevant.

In conclusion, stop fretting over that #1 spot on Google. Instead, work towards making your website the best it can be and let the visitor behavior on your site tell you if your SEO efforts are working.

It seems as if Google’s been talking about revising their search engine forever, but soon, in the next few weeks, Caffeine will be live. We’ll talk about the algorithm implecations in a moment, but first, let’s look at an example of what a search engine results page (SERP) will look like on the new Google:

What you can expect with Google Caffeine update:

1. Live search results. Notice the Twitter update in the middle of the page. Also, the user can click on “Latest” time-frame to see the most recent results. It’s going to be very important to make constant updates to your blog or website to keep relevant.
2. Universal Search features. We’ve been able to search for video and images (as well as other Universal Search items) since 2007, but now these features are easily located in a left sidebar.
3. The Updates tab. See who’s currently talking about your subject on Twitter. Your social media marketing campaign just got easier.
4. Page Previews. See a snippet of the page before you click on the result.

If you’re a website owner, webmaster, marketer or blogger, I’m sure you thinking… “ok Google’s revision is great for the searcher, but what about me? What do I need to do to make sure I rank well on the new Google?”

There are a few algorithm changes that have come to light that anyone involved with the running of a website should know.

1. Speed your website loads. Yup, if you have a slow loading site either due by old technology, too many large images, or a flash intro, then your ranking may suffer a bit.
2. Broken links. Google is all about offering the searcher relevant information. If broken links are found while your site is indexed, you may see lower rankings as a result.
3. Website design. On page factors such as meta titles, meta descriptions, alt tags, current content, still play a factor, but now the design of your site will have an effect as well.
4. Social Bookmarking. Yes, that’s what I said. Social bookmarking will be a major factor in page ranking for 2010.

If your site has been optimized for search engines, you may be in good shape. If you’re not sure if your site meets the latest standards, please feel free to ask us, we’ll give you an honest answer.

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.

I just read a blog post by my friends at Beaupre, a high-tech PR firm in Portsmouth, NH, that got me thinking. Mike McGrail wrote a post about the recent announcement that the Pulitzer Committee is now accepting submissions from online-only publications. This announcement is great news for the Search Marketing industry.

As a search marketing specialist, I read LOTS of online publications, some of which are Pulitzer Prize worthy – in my opinion anyway. I read through the 14 possible Pulitzer Prizes for online journalists. In the SEM industry, two categories in particular sound promising:

9. For distinguished commentary, in print or online or both, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

10. For distinguished criticism, in print or online or both, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

I’m sure we all can think of a few online journalists that would qualify for these categories. My favorites include Loren Baker of Search Engine Journal and Maki of DoshDosh.

Who do you think is Pulitzer Prize worthy? Leave me a comment with your votes.