Industry News & Trends

Keyword rich page Title Tags are vital for search engine marketing success.

Yet, many website marketers don't fully leverage these Title Tags to attract more visitors. They either include a wrong keyword, too many search phrases, superlatives, refer to navigation, or throw in any combination of these (and more) in this powerful and often misunderstood website programming space.

Although Title Tags are not technically considered META data, these few well-chosen phrases or words play a critical role in enabling crawler-based search engines to ascertain the theme of your web pages.

Described analogously as the title of a book upon a library shelf, this important line of text - appearing at the very top of your computer screen and browser bar - is your webpage's calling card to the various engines. Thus, selecting appropriate and effective keywords for the Title Tag is paramount for achieving ranking success, if you'd like greater site traffic and the potential for an increased customer roster.

Briefly, the search engine/Title Tag connection works like this:

• A web user enters a phrase or keyword into a search engine. Let's say someone is searching for solar-powered appliances
• The search engine robots, frequently called "spiders," routinely travel the Internet - visiting sites and compiling a topical database on the themes of websites. The Title Tags of various sites enable the spiders to catalog which sites contain information about solar powered appliances and which ones deal with solar systems, or even further unrelated topics, such as sunscreens and suntan lotions.
• Sites that the engines ascertain to be the most relevant and authoritative regarding solar powered appliances are then presented to the search engine user via a search results page. Incoming links, content and other factors influence the results as well.

Although search engines use a complicated and largely-secretive process with arbitrary algorithms, their initial contact with each website is based on the Title Tags found on website pages.

While there are plenty of theories regarding the perfect formula for a Title Tag, here are a few fail-safe suggestions when optimizing pages outside of your contract with Fathom SEO:

• Don't use Homepage, Contact Us, etc. for your Title tags. Who searches with terms like those?
• Initially, you may want to hold off placing your company name in the Title Tag. While web users may search for your services or products with the name of your company, you should rank high for your own name based on links, the domain name, content, etc. Save the Title Tag space for keywords. Add your name after you achieve a high ranking (if a reference to your brand may help a searcher make a split-second decision). Monitor your ranking when you make such a change.
• Don't leave your Title Tag blank. This is prime SEM space and a great tool for popularizing your site.

Clearly, there is much more to the search engine optimization process than effective Title Tags, but it's never wise to underestimate their value.

Fathom SEO monitors trends and current industry procedures to bring our clients the best ethical, organic search marketing practices available. Fathom SEO's Vice-President, Michael Murray, presents at national conferences, including Search Engine Strategies in Chicago, New York and San Jose.

Questions? Call us at 866-RANK-YOU (726-5968), or email us at info@fathomseo.com.