7 Essential Title Tag Strategies of High Ranking Web Pages

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The 7 Essential Title Tag Strategies of High Ranking Web Pages in 2006
John Heard, Head Researcher Planet Ocean Communications.

... The 'title' tag was, and still is, the single most important onpage element of high ranking webpages.

[You can find the 'title' tag in 'View Source' of your browser, at the top of the web page.]

Today the 'title' tag remains a critical component of top scoring webpages. While it's true that inbound links can cause a webpage 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.


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

1. LENGTH OF TITLE

When creating titles for your webpages, remember that anything more than 63 characters is mostly superfluous. 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.


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 webpage 'title' tag that contains these two words grouped together will typically hold a ranking advantage over another webpage 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.


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 keyphrase 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.


6. TITLES OF HUMAN CONSUMPTION

There is one enduring constant of 'title' tag content creation that must remain a top priority, which is 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 webpages 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 cases, it isn't even necessary to include your company name in your 'title' tag to rank well in a your company name search.

And also be aware that your SE-knowledgable competitors will be rolling on the floor laughing at you if they ever see Untitled Document as your webpage title within the search results, a mistake caused by neglecting (forgetting?) to give the page any 'title' tag whatsoever!

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by John Heard, Courtesy of SearchEngineNews.com

{article shortened, see extended version on www.website-traffic-resources.com}.