Webmaster Papers




Google
 
Web webhostingpapers.com




/pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">

Drive More Traffic to Your Website With Your Web Page Title!


One of the most overlooked, but important components, on your web page is the Meta title. The Meta title is the text or page title found at the top left of your browser window and it is also the title saved when a web site visitor bookmarks your website. Some people will argue that search engines put little or no value on the title tag, but regardless of how the Meta title figures into the ranking algorithm, the title tag is still critical to driving new and repeat traffic to your website.

Countless sites under-utilize this title space by entirely forgetting to name their pages (untitled document) or name their page something completely useless or generic (welcome to our site, or home). An "untitled document" or "home" bookmark will do little to help encourage repeat visitors to your website. Either the visitor will have to take time to rename your bookmark or they will completely forget what the bookmark is for.

Not only does the title tag provide the bookmark name, but it also determines the clickable link that is displayed on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).

For example:

If your title tag looks like this: Customized Email Stationary/Branded Email

Your page will show up like this on a Google search (or another SERP)

Customized Email Stationary / Branded Email

Obviously "untitled document" or "welcome to our site" is not very effective in drawing visitors to your site.

Follow these tips on writing an effective and useful title tag.

  • The Meta Title tag should summarize the contents of each individual page. This means you should always wait until your content has been written before choosing your title tags. Your Title tag should be useful and informative. Remember that your title tag is what shows up as the clickable link that brings visitors to your site through the search engines and what shows up when the visitor bookmarks your site.
  • Base your title tag on keyword "phrases." There are many resources and applications online that will help you determine the popular search terms that relate to your website content. (These are the same "keyword phrases" that should be scattered in your page content and Meta keyword tag and Meta Description Tag) Make sure you use these terms in your title where appropriate. Obviously, it is important that you do not over do the keywords to the point that the title becomes useless.
  • Limit your title to 50-60 characters including spaces. Some browsers actually show many more characters but for those that don't, if you use more characters your title will be cut off. More importantly the number of characters displayed on the SERP is definitely fixed. So any wording longer then 50-60 characters will not help drive any customers to your site simply because your potential visitors will not see it!
  • Search engines ignore (or don't index) "stop words," so avoid using them in your title. Stop words are common words that really don't help determine the true content of your site. Examples of stop words are: the, with, to, also, an, and, as, at, be, because. Space is already limited in your title tag, so there is no sense wasting space on words that will be ignored by the Search Engines and really won't help bring any new traffic to your site.

  • Always use a different Meta title on each of the pages in your website. Your content is different on each page of your site, so your title should be different on each page too.
  • Basically, you can bring more visitors to your website site by keeping your Title Tags simple and meaningful.

    � 2005 Tanya Beaudoin o/a Office on Demand, All rights reserved. You are free to use this article in its entirety, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify Mrs. Beaudoin as to where the material will appear. The attribution should read: "Tanya Beaudoin, B.A. owns and operates a Web Design Company ? OOD Web & Graphic Design Studio - that specializes in e-solutions and graphic design (including web design, search engine optimization and internet marketing products like e-stationary and newsletters). Please visit Tanya's web site at http://www.officeondemand.ca for additional business related articles"

    RELATED ARTICLES


    Finding the Right SEO Company
    I often talk to people who have lost faith in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms because of bad experiences. Either they saw no results, felt that they were tricked into subscribing to a service that could not work, or that they wasted money on a firm that did them no good. Although I agree that there are bad SEO firms out there, I know that there are also many good ones. It's your job to make sure you find an SEO firm that will work for you.
    Yahoos Back!
    I was all set to write an article predicting the future of search engines, when Yahoo dropped Google and replaced it with its own engine. Now that's big news. In less than twenty-four hours, Google went from about 79% of the market share to about 51%, almost overnight. And what a welcome relief it is too! Being #1 in Google was great, but when you had the misfortune of dropping even a couple of positions you really felt it. Now there will be more stability; if you drop in Google today, your hits from Yahoo will remain consistent.
    SEO Tips for Google
    Getting a high ranking on Google is a big achievement. There are many factors that go into pulling a high page rank. I have put together a small list of things that should not be overlooked when optimizing your site. Let's start from the top:
    Google News - Just another article announcer?
    In Google's recent battle towards becoming an international news center, I've come to notice that the results delivered from Google News seems like nothing more than the articles we publish everyday. So I ask, doesn't it seem like Google News resembles an article directory of some sorts?
    Submit Your WebSite: Add Your URL to Web Directories & Search Engines
    Why get into Search engines and directories?
    Linking Strategies to Skyrocket to the Top of Google
    If you don't know already, one of the key success factors to getting loads of free Google traffic to your website is increasing page rank. So just how do you increase your page rank? Well, it's all in the linking.
    Getting Honest With The Search Engines
    Getting Honest With The Search Engines
    The Biggest SEO Scam of All
    While there are many ethical SEO firms serving Internet users today, a few notorious practitioners also exist. One of them called me just the other day.
    Search Engine Marketing: 20 Nitty-Gritty Strategies To Compel People To Link To Your Website
    You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that having quality inbound links from websites with high page ranks can help you attain high rankings in all the Search Engines.
    SEO, the Simplified Version
    Lets get things straight. SEO is a very competitive market. If you have the time to promote your site and have the energy to work hard to get a good PR then this is for you. I have read many books on SEO and tried to get the best tactics to use. If you have already built a website there are two things you need to do. First is ON PAGE optimizing and the second is OFF Page optimizing. On page is basically getting your meta tags and description tags similar to the pages that you have built. One key thing to remember is try to use tags with the keywords in your content. For example: if you have keywords like "SEO consultant" in you content you should bold it and put alt tags around it. Try to do this to each keyword per paragraph, don't over do it then google will think you're a spammer. Build pages according to you keywords and description tags.
    Increase Your Search Engine Ranking
    There are methods to increase your search engine rankings which may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue.
    Buying Textlinks: The Latest SEO Craze
    With search engine algorithms changing seemingly daily, the quest to rank high in the search engines and stay there is proving to be quite the challenge for most webmasters. One of the more recent popular ways of achieving this is through buying text links on websites that have high PR's (page ranks) on Google and that also rank well in the other major search engines. Is buying text link placement worth it?
    SEO and the Outsourcing of Inbound Link Building
    Search Engine Optimization nowadays has a lot to do with building inbound links to your website. Building inbound links is a cumbersome tasks and webmasters have always been looking for shortcuts to do this. Webmasters buy links (as advertising as an example) or contact other webmasters to exchange links with them. The need for inbound links has created a new business opportunity in the search engine optimization industry. The outsourcing of link building emerged from the fact that many inbound links mean a high search engine ranking and/or a high Google PageRank.
    The Best and Easiest Google-Friendly Change to Your Web Site
    No matter who you are or how much you pay for web site advertising, free search engine traffic is probably responsible for a big part of your business. So why make your web site so hard for search engines to figure out?
    Optimum SEO Keyword Density ? A Real-Life Case Study
    So you've built your website, you know what keywords you want to target (i.e. what words your customers are searching for), and you're ready to write your copy. You've been told that you should use your keywords frequently so that you appear in search results for those words. But what does "frequently" mean?
    How To Choose Keywords Before they Skyrocket in Popularity
    Long before the days of researching phrases with the helpful online resources of today, the art of keyword/phrase selection was often left just to guesswork. However, guesswork by today's highly competitive standards is just not good enough. So how is it possible to select a powerful traffic-pulling phrase in this fashion without researching it in real time? Better yet, is it possible to choose such a phrase and get positioned before it becomes popular?
    Search Engine Optimization: Who Do You Trust?
    Internet search engines exist to organize the seemingly immeasurable amount of information available on the web. They direct people to pages that are relevant to their searches, pages that discuss the exact keywords they are looking for. For a business that receives the majority of its clientele from search engines, search engine rankings can make or break an e-commerce company.
    Over Optimization and the OOP - Does a Penalty Exist?
    If you have questions about whether or not the Over-Optimization Penalty (OOP) exists or not, then you obviously haven't pushed the limits enough with your own website optimization or organic SEO efforts to have experienced the joys of running into the OOP (Over-Optimization Penalty).
    How to Choose Keywords to Theme Your Pages and Boost Your Traffic
    One of the most frequent questions I get asked is in the choice of keywords for a new site, specifically secondary keywords.. These are the words or phrases that you use when writing your content to help theme the page so that the search engines know what your page is about. These secondary keywords also help to bring in more traffic, because they add more depth to your page, meaning that your page is found for a lot more phrases than just the primary phrase you page is built around.
    Diary of a Google Gazumpee
    Back in November, when the Google Dance began, Barry Lloyd of makemetop.co.uk wrote an article entitled "Been Gazumped by Google?" GAZUMPED! What a wonderfully descriptive term. In fact, it succinctly describes what happened to us when our website went from #1 to oblivion a few months ago.