SEO for Title Tags

The Title Tag is the single most important part of getting your site to rank high in Google search results. While Title Tags alone won’t get you to the top of the search results, without them page one rankings are next to impossible. This article will teach you how to evaluate if your site’s Title Tags need work.

Where is my page title?

Because the Title Tag is not directly visible anywhere on your web page it is often overlooked by site owners and designers, but SEO experts know it is the most important place to use keywords to achieve high rankings. This is because the Title Tag is the most visible part of your search result on Google’s website. So it makes sense that the most important thing to Google is what shows up on Google’s site as a highly visible big blue link. Google also knows that when it’s users type in a search they want to see a link that contains the words they typed in for them to click on. That’s why Google will bold your search terms when they appear in the title of pages listed in your search results, as they have for my example search for bed liner paint.

bedlinerpaint

Here is an example. Durabak Company’s website, www.nonslipcoating.com, ranks first on the first page in a search for the keywords bed liner paint, which is a popular search term for people that are looking for their product. The picture below demonstrates that the searched keywords also show up in bold font. Naturally, Google Users are more prone to click on the links that use the very keywords they typed in. These bolded words come from well-done Title Tags.

Common Title Tag Mistakes

One of the most common mistakes with Title Tags is to use the same title for every page on a website. Google does many things to discourage this. In the Google webmaster guidelines it says ”Avoid repeated or boilerplate titles. It’s important to have distinct, descriptive titles for each page on your site.” In Google’s Webmaster Tools duplicate title tags appears in a list of HTML improvements.

webmastertools

And again the point is made in the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide:
“Each of your pages should ideally have a unique title tag, which helps Google know how the page is distinct from the others on your site.”*

Another common mistake is title tags that are too long. A good rule of thumb is to keep title tags under 70 characters in length. Title tags that are longer than that are much less effective in improving search rank.

A third mistake is not changing title tags as the marketing goals of the website change What your title tags say should depend on the current marketing goals for your site. Most title tags will go through three stages.

1. Making your brand more visible.
2. Improving keyword search results.
3. Improving click-thru rates.

What should your title tags say?

For most sites the most important thing to get a number one ranking for is the Company / Brand name. Potential customers that already know your name are the most likely to convert into sales. If those prospects are using Google to find out more about your product or company you will want them to visit your website first. Therefore if your site doesn’t rank number one on Google in a search for your company or brand name then your title tags should be optimized with that goal in mind. Do this by making your company

 

or brand name the first thing on most of your title tags. If your business is local and you want people to visit your physical location your should also include location info. City and state names, neighborhoods, communities, landmarks and major cross streets can be sprinkled onto different title tags throughout your site.

Once your site ranks number one in Google for your company / brand name you may want to focus more on improving non-branded keyword search results. These are keywords that describe your product or service without using words that are specific only to your company. The search pictured above for bed liner paint is this type of search. You can see the site www.nonslipcoating.com ranks #1 for this search term, and the title for the home page of the site is Roll On Bed Liner, Do It Yourself Bed Liner Paint. This title is intended to help the page rank for three different terms. Roll On Bed Liner, Do It Yourself Bed Liner, and Bed Liner Paint.

Page Title of BrandThis site has moved on to using keyword title tags because it holds the #1 ranking for Durabak the brand of bed liner paint that it sells. One indicator that it will hold that number one rank is that Google uses an alternate title with the word Durabak for the same page when showing the results for a search on the word Durabak.

Why would Google do this? Because they know that their users will have a better experience if they have the choice to click on a link that uses the keyword(s) they just typed in. This brings us to a third change that some sites may make to their Title Tags, and that is using wording that will make searchers more likely to click on the listing. This is mostly for big business and sites that have had a #1 ranking for most of their target keywords for over a year. If you get to this point give me a call and we’ll talk more about it.









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