There are a lot of untruths floating around the Web about SEO. I often hear them when clients bring them up to me. New ebooks on SEO are constantly popping up with headlines like, “Rank First on the Search Engines!” or “Learn the Secrets that SEO people won’t tell you!”
Well, as an SEO guru (and I was a guru long before most of the others, LOL), I’ll tell you right now, the most important tag in your website code is the title tag.
The title tells not only the search engines, but your users what the website is about. It should be no longer than 60 characters, and should have your most important keywords in it. But, it needs to be a title, NOT a string of keywords stuck together.
Here are some examples of titles that I have recently placed on websites:
Jewell Entertainment: Your Agency for Unforgettable Events (this is for an entertainment agency that places talent at events)
Tamara Alter: Unique Gemstone Jewelry (a jewelry designer)
Arenson Office Furniture: San Diego’s Workspace Solutions (office furniture store in San Diego)
Grand Entrances: San Diego’s Finest Custom Entry Doors (‘nuf said)
Once Upon A Favor: Wedding and Baby Shower Favors (wedding and party favors)
Now, once the title is correct on the home page, it needs to change for all the inner pages in order to reflect content. So, on the About Us page, the title would say: Once Upon A Favor: About Us and so on.
A lot of people make the mistake of just repeating the same title tag over and over. It does not help your users find their way through your website.
Thanks — very helpful article, i think my title is too long so going to look at it
Excellent site mysearchguru.com and I am really pleased to see you have what I am actually looking for here: this .. as it’s taken me literally 2 hours and 38 minutes of searching the web to find you (just kidding!) so I shall be pleased to become a regular visitor 🙂
The Title Tag is not a Meta Tag but it is very important, arguably the single most important element of on page optimization. It is good to take the time to develop your title tags carefully, making sure you have a good keyword foundation from which to draw and that every page has its own unique title reflecting the subject and keyword terms being optimized for.
Really enjoyed this, thanks for posting. What is the affiliation with web design san diego meetup group next month?
Awesome this is a great share, thank you for putting this article together! I found this site through the san diego web design blog.
Awesome this is a great share, thank you for putting this article together! Saw this post tweeted by odegard media on twitter. Looking forward to more and will reply to those who comment back for next months group meetup!
I used to be the Meetup Organizer for the Web Design Meetup here in San Diego, and am still a member. Other than that, there is no other connection.