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7 Essential Title Tag Strategies
by John Heard

Courtesy of SearchEngineNews.com | February 2006 Planet Ocean Communications, the top-rated source of search engine marketing information.

Today the <title> tag remains a critical component of top scoring web pages. While it's true that inbound links can cause a web page to rank very well even if the keyword is missing from the body of the page, you'll seldom find a page without the keyword in the <title> tag that ranks highly for a competitive search.

These days, there persists both myths and confusion about the role the title tag actually plays within the ranking formulas. So, for that reason, let's take a fresh look at what actually is helping pages score well in the year 2006.

The 7 Essential Title Tag Strategies of Today's High Ranking Web Pages

Now that you know how important the <title> tag really is, you'll want to incorporate these top seven strategies to allow your titles to work at maximum power, search-engine-wise...

1. Length of Your Title: When creating titles for your web pages, remember that anything more than 63 characters is mostly superfluous.

Although Yahoo will display up to 112 characters and MSN up to 70, by limiting your <title> tags to Google's limit of 63 or less, you're increasing your chances you'll get your entire <title> tag displayed on all three major engines.

From a search engine ranking perspective, you should limit titles to only your best keywords while remembering that, typically, pages rank better when there is more than one keyword within the <title> tag.

Don't be afraid to use so-called stop words (words that are ignored by engines), such as the, is, of, a, and, as well as punctuation. You will find that, if you do some test searches with and without your stop words, in most cases these common terms are simply ignored.

This means that you can confidently use stop words to make your <title> tags more palatable for human consumption without running the risk of diluting the importance of your target keywords.

2. Word Proximity: Search engines actually do pay attention to the distance between words for multiple keyword searches. For example, in a search for Chevrolet Corvette, a web page <title> tag that contains these two words grouped together will typically hold a ranking advantage over another web page with a <title> tag such as Corvette, a legend by Chevrolet.

As for punctuation in the eyes of the search engines, Chevrolet/Corvette is on equal footing with Chevrolet Corvette, since the slash is regarded as just an empty space. Therefore, the engines view the distance between these keywords as exactly the same.

3. Keyword Location: As a general rule, the closer you place your keyword to the beginning of the <title> tag, the better the ranking advantage. However, bear in mind that we've seen fluctuations on this element from engine to engine and even from month to month. Regardless, on the whole, you can expect better results by placing your keywords first in your <title> tag.

4. Word Order: Consider the search dell computers. This will generate far different results than a search for computers dell. The search engines do pay attention to the linear order of your keywords, so be sure to position them in the most likely order that real people typically use when expressing them in everyday language.

However, be aware of the opportunities that may also be available when you switch the keyword order around. There may be instances where you'll find that reversing the keyword order sends good traffic with less competition. By all means, explore this possibility when doing your research and be prepared to construct ancillary pages designed to make the most of such opportunities whenever they're available.

5. Repetitions: Should you use the keyword more than once in the title? The answer is... it depends. First, let's talk about what not to do. Do not repeat keywords one after the other as in keyword, keyword, keyword - however, there is no denying that a few pages that score well in specific key phrase searches do, in fact, repeat keywords. An appropriate use of repetition might look something like:

Las Vegas - Sites and Attractions in the city of Las Vegas

Regardless, you should keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of the top scoring sites do not repeat keywords within the <title> tag. Once is usually enough.

Certainly you should take into consideration the typical search-phrase usages as well as research the top scoring pages before you decide. Just be sure to bear in mind that simplistic duplication of words without regard to human readability will typically work against you.

6. Titles for Human Consumption: There is one enduring constant of <title> tag content creation that must remain a top priority: how well the text appeals to a human.

Because the <title> tag is displayed as the headline for your page in the search results, its role is to motivate people to click your link. Therefore, the <title> tag becomes the headline for your page. Its job is to reassure the searcher that, indeed, your page's content is all about exactly what they are looking for. Otherwise, why would anyone bother to click your link?

7. What Words to Use: By now it should be obvious that you should carefully select your best targeted keywords as your <title> tag (duh!). However, it's surprising to see how many sites are apparently unaware of this very basic and simple fact of search engine marketing and optimization. We are still seeing many, many web sites that use the same <title> tag on every single page of their site: usually the company name or domain name. And, that's a huge mistake.

Now, if your site is guilty of committing this error, then you should probably jump up and down for joy! ...Why? Because your traffic is likely to substantially increase once you correct the error. By inserting descriptive, keyword-rich <title> tags into your web pages you'll be giving the engines exactly what they need to better index and rank your pages.

Remember that it isn't difficult to rank well for your company or domain name. After all, such names are usually relatively unique and consequently have little or no competition. In many (if not most) cases, it isn't even necessary to include your company name in your <title> tag to rank well in a your company name search.

What Web marketing tool do we whole-heartedly recommend to our clients? There's no question - it's WebPosition Gold. Unlike other products out there, this amazing tool really does help you achieve top rankings on the search engines! Be sure to check them out at WebPosition.com.

This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition Gold . FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those