Search Engine Optimization
Using Title Tags for Better Engine Results and Higher Site Ranking
Achieving good search engine placement and optimizing your web site pages for important keyword phrases starts with using the Title Tag simply, yet effecively.
There are a number of factors affecting how the major search engines rank your web pages, most of which are under your control. One of the most important factors in search engine optimization is your web page Title Tag.
Using Title Tags effectively is key to getting higher rankings and better search engine results in the major search engines.
The Title Tag is considered a meta tag. It is a snippet of code embedded in your web page html code that is displayed in the top of the viewing web browser. When you visit a site using Internet Explorer, for example, look at the very top of the browser. The title is displayed in the topmost blue bar, next to the Internet Explorer icon.
The Title Tag appears like this in html code:
<title>Your Web Site Title Here</title>
This Title Tag not only tells your visitors what information they can expect to find on your particular page, but it also tells the visiting search engine how it might index and categorize the page as well.
This may seem basic, but choosing the proper Title Tag for your page is critical to search engine optimization. Imagine a web site that specializes in selling boots. It doesn’t make sense for every Title Tag on the site to say the same thing, such as “Boot Company – We Sell Boots at Low Prices”.
It makes more sense to consider the product pages on an individual basis. So, for example, a product page that details a “sheepskin boot” might have a Title Tag like this:
“Sheepskin Boots – Boot Company Name”, or more simply … “Sheepskin Boots”.
A webmaster desiring to target multiple phrases in the Title Tag might include other relevant terms that web searchers (potential customers) might be typing in order to find their site and their ware. An example might be:
“Sheepskin Boots and Footwear”.
This phrase will more realistically appear in a search engine index for the search terms “sheepskin boots” and also “sheepskin footwear”.
Avoid the obvious temptation to include every relevant phrase under the sun. If you overload your Title Tags, you essentially dilute the target phrase. A Title Tag like the following probably won’t help your “Sheepskin Boots” sales:
“Sheepskin Boots, Sheepskin Footwear, Sheepskin moccasins, Sheepskin footies, and Sheepskin socks”.
If it your intention to target each one of the above particular phrases, a much better strategy is to build a new page for each individual phrase, much like you would intend to build a new page for each individual product.
Consider it this way. Rather than building one web page dedicated to all of your sheepskin products for sale, consider building a link from each particular product to a specific product information page. That way, your sheepskin boots can have their own page that not only has relevant page copy and pricing, but also a relevant, search engine friendly Title Tag like “Sheepskin Boots”. Similarly, your sheepskin moccasins will have their own page as well with relevant page copy and pricing, but a different relevant Title Tag like “Sheepskin Moccasins”.
Again, the differences are clear cut and obvious, but make a large difference in how a search engine, like Google, MSN, or Yahoo, will rank your pages.
