To assist your climb up the Search Engine Results, you must place the keywords you are seeking to appear for in your [title] tag…
The [title] tag is a piece of code that displays the text that appears at the very top of your browser window…that’s it, up there in the top left corner of your screen, the white text in the blue bar.
It is also what the major Search Engines display on their Search Engine results page…
To see the [title] tag and the rest of the code that creates your page, open Internet Explorer 7.0 and click on “Page” on the toolbar and select “View Source” from the drop down menu. Alternatively, right click on any clear area of the page; a menu will pop up and then again, select “View Source”…Notebook will open and your page code will be displayed. Now look for the [title] tag (CTRL + F and enter the word : title…if it isn’t there, you have a bigger problem than just SEO). It should be near the top of the code listing.
To assist your climb up the Search Engine Results, you must place the keywords you are seeking to appear for in your [title] tag.
The content of your [title] carries significant “weight” amongst the many parameters that the Search Engines use within their various algorithms to determine in what order to display the web pages that they deem are relevant to a search term. As a guide, we suggest you keep the number of words in your [title] tag to 10 or less and keep the total number of characters including spaces to less than 65 (this varies slightly between the Search Engines…in excess of these and the Search Engines simply truncate the additional words or characters).
Given these guidelines, writing your title tag becomes a bit like writing a Japanese haiku…it must include your keywords, but only once, it must look relevant to a searcher and it must be compelling and act as an introduction to the tag.
Having completed it’s initial task of contributing to your page appearing toward the top of the search results, the next job of the [title] tag is to encourage searchers to click on the link to your web page.
The best way to write your [title] tag is to pretend that you have just done a search on a Search Engine…as a potential customer, what “headline” do you think would make someone stop at your listing, amongst the other nine or so displayed and encourage them to click through to your website? Now, write that headline using our guidelines…
For SEO purposes we recommend you place your keywords toward the beginning of the [title] tag; if you feel that you must include your company or business unit name then place this at the end of the tag.
Finally, because every page of your website must be targeting different keyword groups/themes, your [title] tag should be different on each and every page of your website.
Why do we provide this level of SEO detail in our tips and techniques section? Can’t you just go and change your website [title] tags and your site will appear at the top of the Search Engine Result pages for your keywords?
Well…yes and no. Clearly we want you to know that we know what we are doing…and we also like our clients to be savvy; it motivates us to exceed your expectations. By providing you with search engine optimisation tips and techniques in detail such as this, our clients understand better some of the ways we work to increase your website traffic and grow your online revenues….and how complex it can be once you start overlapping the many techniques required.
The reality is…in the same way that you could complete a full set of end of year company accounts and your tax return, most smart business people recognise that they are better served by using an accountant and focussing on their strengths. The same applies in the complex world of Search Engine Optimisation; you could do your own SEO work, but is that the best use of one of your most valuable resources, your time?
