Page titles are the text that appear at the top of every Webpage in the browser window and also in the search engine results. If utilized with SEO in mind page titles are one of the easiest ways to improve search engine rankings.
Importance of Page Titles
- Page titles tell the search engines what your Webpage is about. When keywords or keyword phrases are incorporated into the page titles it helps the search engines associate your Webpage with those keywords.
- People surfing online are more likely to click on a page if the page title contains the keyword they are searching for. This will help your page ranking with the search engines as well as deliver the content people are looking for. Search engines like Google track how many visitors a page and using relevant page titles will increase your click rate.
How to Use Page Titles to your Advantage
- Use clear phrases in your page titles but not full sentences or a list of keywords. For example if your page is about Search Engine Optimization a good page title would be SEO Design – How to SEO a bad page title would be, SEO – Search Engine Optimization – Look here for how to design your webpage with SEO in mind. Do you see the difference? The good example uses the keyword SEO the bad example blatantly lists the keywords then goes into a long lengthy sentence.
- Page titles should be kept under 65 characters. If longer the text will be cut off in the search engine results page.
- Each page on your website should have a different page title that reflects the content of that page.
- Use descriptive page titles. If your page is about Wastewater Operations in Mexico your page title should reflect this. For example a good title would be Mexico Wastewater Operations a bad page title would be WW in Mexico.
As you write your page titles try to think of one or two keywords or keyword phrases that best reflect your page content and use these in your page titles. This will help your webpage rise in rankings and reflect the quality services you are offering.
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When I first started with Search Engine Optimization I had no idea what I was doing and I did everything wrong. I didn’t have meta tags, or page titles that were designed for SEO and I didn’t even know what a sitemap was. Then one day I was on the phone with a fellow online business owner who ripped apart my site. He was brutal. When I hung up I wasn’t sure if I should curse his name or sit down and cry. I decided not to do either and instead to take his suggestions and make some well needed changes to my site.
Below I define SEO terms of the most basic items you need to know about and what they mean if you are going to do your own SEO for your website.
Meta Tags: These are tags that describe various aspects about a web page. The Meta information is kept in the head of the HTML doc and it gives the details on keywords and descriptions about the Web page.
Title Tags: This is an HTML tag that is in the top line of a Web browser and is used by search engines when doing a title search.
Tag: A command that directs how a browser will render and format a Web page. Tags are encapsulated by a beginning and ending tags, for example <i>word</i>
Page Name: This is the name you give to each page of your website. These should reflect what is on the page so when search engines crawl the Web site keywords are viewed by the search engine.
CSS Stylization: Cascading Style Sheets, or CSS are a set of instructions that direct how text should appear on a Web page. CSS allows Web developers to control the style and layout of multiple Web pages all at the same time. When a change is made that particular element is updated automatically wherever it appears within the Web site.
Sitemaps: A sitemap offers a hierarchical description of a Web site written in a language that search engines read. Web masters can submit a generated sitemap that contains all accessible URL’s on the site. Sitemaps don’t replace the existing system of crawl based search engine mechanisms that search engines use to discover URL’s.
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