How to avoid the 3 biggest title tag mistakes with Search Engines
Your title tag is the most important
3 to 12 words on your Web page. It accounts for up to 80% of your rankings
on search engines.
Here's why:
Search Engines look for "searched for" words
first in title tags.
The title tag is one of the main places search engines
look to get a description of your site when posting the results of a
keyword search.
Most people destroy any chance of success by making one or more
of the following 3 mistakes in their title tags.
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Before we start let's describe what a TITLE TAG is and where it goes.
Your TITLE TAG goes at the top of the page right after your HEAD TAG.
Use HTML code and do it exactly as shown below:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your title with a description using important Keyword Phrases</TITLE>
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Now let's get started.
Mistake #1. If your keywords or keyword
phrases are not in your title tag, your Web page will NOT be found anywhere
near the top of the search engines when these keywords and keyword phrases
are search for.
Your keyword phrases absolutely MUST be in your title
tag.
Mistake #2. Trying to put too many
words and phrases in the title tag. Your title tag must be less than
about 80 characters (including spaces) for Google and most other search
engines. That's why you can't optimize a page for more than three to
five keywords or keyword phrases. Two or three are better.
Mistake #3. I think this is the most
repeated mistake of all and it is so easy to avoid. Be sure to START
your title tag with a keyword or keyword phrase. And even more important
. . . start your title tag with your most important keyword phrase.
Here are some other important notes about title tags.
Don't repeat words over and over in your title tag.
You can use some words two times such as "golf clubs" and
"golf shoes," but don't over do it.
Have a different title tag for each page of your Web
site.
Don't put your company name in your title tag.
Killer Title Tags are your key to high rankings on search engines
Most people spend days or weeks on their Web site pages
and then spend less than five minutes (some people have admitted to
spending less than one minute) writing their title tags.
Remember: Your title tag is responsible for 80% of your
success for high ranking on the search engines. AND it is responsible
for getting traffic after you get the high ranking (because it is likely
to be used for the description of your site when search engines list
your page in the results for a keyword search.)
In summary: The time you spend designing
and writing your title tags will be well rewarded.
Jerry Minchey
Copyright 2003 - 2004
Jerry Minchey is a long time student and practitioner of search engine
optimization and is the editor of the website, www.SearchEngineU.com
which is dedicated to showing search engine beginners how to achieve
high rankings on Google and other search engines using website optimization
techniques.
