Search Engine Optimising the powerful Title Tag

The title tags are crucial for the search engines. The copy you use in the title tag is one of the most important SEO factors in how the search engines decide to you’re your site. The title tag is also what appears in the search engine result pages as the heading describing what your site is all about. It’s very important to get the balance right in optimising the title tag with keywords relevant to the web page but also making it stand out in a way that people are more like to click your listing instead of the competitor. Together with the meta description tag, an appealing and relevant title tag can be the difference between just ranking well and actually getting click throughs to your site, and ultimately conversions!

How the title tag appears in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs):



How the title tag appears in your browser when you view a website:




The most important factors to keep in mind when you write a title tag/title attribute:

1. Write unique title tags for each page. Having the same title tag on each page is just going to confuse the search engines and make it difficult for them to determine which page is more relevant for the keyword being searched for. For more on this read SEOmoz excellent post on keyword cannibalisation

2. Keep it relevant. Write a title tag that is relevant to the page, which what the page is about.

3. Don’t keyword stuff. Target max 2-3 keywords, ideally two for each title tag. AND do remember not to target the same keyword in several title tags, this will again confuse the search engines determining which page is the most relevant for that keyword.

4. How long should a title tag be? Google truncate a title tag after 64 characters, this doesn’t mean your title tag can’t be longer but a good tip would be make sure you have the important words and a complete (readable) sentence within 64 characters. Also remember that the title tag isn’t only for SEO purposes but also your “free ad heading”, so you need to describe what the website/web page is about to increase the chances of people clicking through.

For example: Conference Call Service & Web conferencing with Powownow | the conference calling company
(Google ends the tag after the..BUT still read and index the entire title tag)

5. Where should your company name appear in the title tag?
Now this is one of the most discussed questions about the title tag. And it’s all about personal opinion, except from that I’m right =)

• Is your brand a well known brand? A brand that people would search for, i.e BBC, Apple, Sony, Saab etc If so, yes the brand name should be in the title tag as the first word.

Example: “Saab London Dealers – Official Saab Dealerships in London”

• But if your brand is not well known….yet. For example your website sells/offers a product or service that people are more likely to search for I recommend the brand name to be in the title tag on the homepage, but not as the first word
  

Example: "Conference Call Service & Web Conferencing with Powwownow"


Final words
Spend time planning what keywords you target, think about appealing to the searcher as well as the search engines. In the end it’s no point being #1 if no one actually clicks through to your website!!

"Writing a title tag - It’s like sudoku with words!!"

Lastly if you disagree, you have something to add or just want to say I’m great =) Please feel free to comment!