Using Title Tags On Your Website
Industry: Advertising & Marketing
(PRUnderground) December 23rd, 2010
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By Alex Miranda
OK so let’s get down to business. I rarely ever see a website that has proper title tag structure. Really if after you read this article and you have any of these improper title tag structures, please do me a favor and fix them. Do not let this go. Title tags are one of the most important ranking factors for Google. There are so many ranking factors from the title tags that I figured I would give you some of the most important tips.
First lets make sure that everyone knows what a title tag is and where it is located.
- The title tags are what appear in the clickable link on the search engine results page.
- They are located on the top left hand corner of your browser.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get started:
- Title tags should be no longer than 65 characters – While it is OK to have to have over 65 characters, the search engines pick up only the first 65 characters of the title tag.
- Keywords – Do not use single word keywords in your title tags. This is one of the biggest errors I see on websites. I have looked at so many websites that have this error. Even the ones that are using so called SEO experts, have it on their sites.
- Keyword Phrases – Instead of Keywords, your title tag should contain specific keyword phrases. For example, if your website was an acupuncture site and you were located in Brewster NY, you would not use: “Acupuncture, Brewster NY,” instead use: “Acupuncturist Brewster NY” It is more specific and targeted to you geographic location.
- Commas – I can say without a doubt, that just about all my Facebook friends who have a website, are using commas on their title tags. Get rid of them now!!. If you have keyword phrases separated by commas, it throws a red flag and Google will most likely ignore the phrase and consider it spam.
- Hyphens & Pipes – These are appropriate keyword phrase separators. There are others you may use, just do not use commas.
- Stop Word – Do not bother using stop words such as: the, it, I, be..etc. Google discounts them and you waste space.
- Text Copy – Once you have written your SEO optimized text for you content, use keyword phrases with specific keywords from within the text. In the example below, notice the highlighted keywords within the content for www.eudoxieacupuncture.com. The keywords were combined to create the title tag keyword phrase (Acupuncture Brewster NY).
When you do a Google search for that phrase, notice it shows up within the first 5 rankings.
Below are some more quick tips:
- Use at least 2 keyword phrases per page
- Use a unique title tag for each page
- Do not use the same keyword phrase and title tags on every page
- Use keyword phrases that are relevant to your page
- Do not use a cluster of single keywords as title tags
- Do not use the company name by itself without any keyword phrases
- Do not use, untitled document, website URL or anything else that is useless to the search engine.
Well that is it for now my friends. I hope this helps you all. Watch for my next article which will explain everything about Meta Tag Descriptions.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at amiranda@prunderground.com. You can also follow me on:
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