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Search Engine Articles
All About Title Tags
by Jill Whalen (The Web Whiz)
Written February 2000 - Updated October 2001
The Title Tag is one of the most important factors in achieving high search
engine rankings.
Last time we talked about the basics of search engine optimization. Now it's
time get down to the meat! In this article we'll drill into one of the most
important factors in achieving high search engine rankings, the title tag.
What Is a Title Tag?
A title tag is essentially an HTML code snippet that creates the words that
appear in the top bar of your Web browser, for example, "XYZ Company Home Page."
These words were entered into the title tag of the site's HTML code. They don't
appear anywhere on the actual Web page. The HTML code for a title tag looks like
this:
<HEAD>
<TITLE> XYZ Company Home Page
</HEAD>
The title tag is usually the first element in the "HEAD" section, followed by
meta description and meta keywords tags.
Some Web site creation tools automatically generate the title tag from
information you provide. You may have noticed Web pages that are labeled "Page
1," "Page 2," or "Home Page" in the browser bar. Labels like these are used by
beginning Web site designers who simply don't know how to use title tags for
maximum benefit.
Search Engines and Title Tags
All search engines use title tags to gather information about your Web site. The
word(s) in the title tag will appear in the hyperlink listings on the search
engine results page; people click the hyperlink to go to your site. Arguably,
your title tag is second in importance only to the actual text on the page in
determining your site's ranking with the search engines.
So far as placement of your title tags is concerned, most search engine experts
agree that it probably doesn't matter if the title tag is the first element in
the section. However, I believe that good coding practice argues for placing it
first.
What Not to Put in Your Title Tag More important than the placement of the title
tag are the words you put in the tag, and the order in which those words appear.
Many site owners mistakenly believe they should put their company names in this
tag. This is only a good idea if you are a well-known company that people will
be searching for by name, such as Coca-Cola or McDonalds. Otherwise, you should
assume that most potential customers will be searching for specific products or
services, not a particular company name.
For example, if your company is named "Johnson and Smith Inc." and you are a tax
accountant in Texas, putting only "Johnson and Smith Inc." in your title tag
will probably be fruitless. If you absolutely insist on including your company
name in the title tag, put it at the end of the tag, after the more important
keyword information. (A number of search engine gurus believe that some search
engines give more weight to words that appear first in the title tag.)
Title Tags Should Be Specific Keywords and Phrases As the Texas tax accountant,
you would want your company's site to appear in the search engine results for
searches on keywords such as "Texas tax accountants" and "CPAs in Texas." You
would need to be even more specific if you prefer to work for people only in the
Dallas area. In that case, use keywords such as "Dallas tax accountants" in your
site's title tags. This is a key point: If you're only seeking customers or
clients in a specific geographical region, your keywords need to reflect that
geographical specificity. People looking for a tax accountant in Dallas may
begin their search by simply entering "tax accountant" in the search engine.
However, once they see that their search is returning accountants from all over
the world, they'll narrow the search by adding "Dallas" to their search terms.
When they do, you want your site to be right there on the first page of new
results.
In our Dallas accountants example, you could create a title tag that says
<TITLE>Dallas tax accountants</TITLE>
or you could say
<TITLE>Dallas CPAs</TITLE>.
However, there's more than enough space in the title tag to include both of
these important keyword phrases. (In fact, search engines will display 60 to 115
characters of your title tag.) Here's an example of a better approach:
<TITLE>Dallas tax accountants dallas CPAs</TITLE>
Most search engines are not case-sensitive. In the past, a few of them were, so
it was important to try and utilize both lower and upper case in your Title as
necessary. Since most engines don't make any case distinction any more, I
recommend creating Titles that look the most enticing; that is, something that
will get the user to click on your listing. Whether this means you prefer ALL
CAPS to make it stand out, or first letter caps, is up to you.
As for placing the word "Dallas" twice in the title tag, I have found this
approach to be both permissible and effective. Just make sure that you don't put
the same words right next to each other. For example, a tag that reads
"Accountants in Dallas -- Dallas CPAs" is very likely to trigger a red flag with
the search engines, so that the word could get ignored entirely. It's also not a
good idea to use a word more than twice or to repeat more than one or two words
total in the title tag. However, if you keep these caveats in mind, it's fine to
repeat one or two keywords in your title tags.
Use Only Keywords and Phrases That Are in the Text on Your Page If you're not
sure what to put in your title tag, take a look at the text within the page
itself. If you've done a good job with your writing, you should find all the
keywords you need right there on your page. Simply choose the most relevant ones
for the title tag. If you can't find any good keywords on your page, it's time
for a rewrite.
The optimal approach when creating a Web site is to think of all the keyphrases
that best reflect your business, and then compose text around those phrases.
When you go to write your title tag, you simply revisit the keyword list, make
sure the keywords are being used on the page, and poof, you've a good,
keyword-rich title tag.
But remember: If the words don't appear somewhere in the text of your page, they
shouldn't be in your title tag.
Using our tax accounting firm example, suppose you look at the text on your page
and notice that the phrase "Texas tax accountant" doesn't appear anywhere on the
page. Does this mean you shouldn't use this phrase in the title tag? Well, yes
and no. If you're not willing to change the text on your page, then no, you
shouldn't put those words in your title tag. However, you can also forget about
ranking high for those words! The smart thing to do is to rewrite the text on
your page so that it utilizes the keywords that are important to you. This
doesn't mean to just stick the words at the top or bottom of the page. It
doesn't mean to hide them in the background. Nor does it mean to put them in a
tiny font so that no one will notice them. And it doesn't mean to simply put
them in your meta keyword tag. If keywords are important enough that you want
your site to be found under them in the search engines, they are important
enough to be elegantly incorporated into the body text of your page.
Once you have incorporated important keyphrases into the text of your site, all
you have to do is take these same phrases and put them in your title tag. It
really is that simple.
Contact Jill Whalen by e-mail at jill@highrankings.com, or by phone at
508-309-3037.
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Jill Whalen of High Rankings is an internationally recognized
search engine optimization consultant
and editor of the free weekly High Rankings Advisor
search engine marketing
newsletter
She specializes in search engine optimization, SEO consultations and seminars.
Jill's handbook, "The
Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" teaches business owners how
and where to place relevant keyword phrases on their Web sites so that they make
sense to users and gain high rankings in the major search engines.
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