How To Write A Title Tag For Better Seo?

What makes you read an article at once? What is that driving force that makes you feel that an article might be interesting? The answer to these questions is the title of an article. The title of a page is the most important constituent of an article which tells the search engine about the content of your page.

In order to increase the traffic on your page, that is to increase the number of visitors on your page, you need to have an effective title tagline for SEO and you also need to have an interesting title for the readers.

For example, if you Google “how to write a resume” the first and the top most search result will be the exact match of your search. The title for this article was molded in such a way that it appears at the top in the search list.   However when you go through the search results, you find 2nd and 3rd article titleds “How To Write A Resume, Resume Writing, Sample Resume” and “How to Make a Resume (with Free Sample Resumes)” respectively. Although the top result was taken by the exact match of our search, but this article even more click worthy since it includes words like “Free Sample Resumes“.

Screenshot – april 10, 2013 (Google.com)

Note : By seeing the above picture you may argue that the first article has more chances of attracting the visitors because there is Google plus author profile linked to it, despite being simple compared with 2nd and 3rd search result. But my point here is only to compare the titles and see how effective is 2nd and 3rd results without considering the Google profile pic.

In the above example you can see the 2nd result – “How To Write A Resume, Resume Writing, Sample …. ” and if you want to see the complete title, just open the site in any browser and keep the cursor over the tab and you can see the see the complete title like the picture below:

The above mentioned example surely suggests on how you need to design your title, which not only appears among the top search results but also has an eye catching and interesting title to force the visitors to click on it.

Before jumping onto any conclusion regarding the process of making a title interesting and make it appear at the top of the search list, it is necessary to know a few details.

Meta Tags

These are XHTML elements that are used to deliver any information about the website’s page to the users of the website and search engines. These elements include

• Title tag lines
• Description
• Keywords

Know about title tags

These are the part of Meta tags, which are present around the top most part in the HTML covered under the area. Similar to the titles of the chapters that you have in a book, these title tags tells the search engines and the readers about the content of your page. It is the title tag of your page which will make the persons searching on the search engines to make a decision whether they must look into your page or not.

Not only this, title tag must contain some of the keywords which will enable search engines to understand what your page is all about. The title tags must be designed in such a way that they should appear catchy for the human eyes and should also be formatted according to the needs of search engines.

You must always remember that it is the title tag is the most important tag which tells the search engine about the content of your page. It is also equally important for your SEO strategy.

Here are some of the ways in which you may end up giving a good title to your page which will surely boost the traffic on your site.

Write a Reader Friendly Title

In the previous example we have already seen that the search result that came on top of the result was left behind by the one which was amongst the tops and also had an effective and interesting title added to its page. The title “10 east steps to make a cake” when referred to one’s website, does not sound as ambiguous as it appears to be in a search result.

Whenever you are writing a title tag for your page, there are bound to be several questions in your mind. Here, we try to answer the most important ones.

• What are the norms about the length of the title tag?

The length of the article must not exceed 70 characters. Secondly, you should invest adequate thought in the placement of keywords.

At this point, you could ask – what if you are writing a language that goes from right to left? Or, what if your target audience is from a country having these language norms? Well, in these cases, you have to reverse the order.

• How shall I go about the construction of the title tag in terms of placement of words?

The important and more descriptive of the keywords must come in the initial parts of the title tag, and the less important ones must be kept for the latter parts.

• What if I need to use similar important words?

In such cases, you may use pipes in order to distinct important phrases. You must also see to it that you do not have any commas, exclamation mark, underscores or other punctuations in your tag.

• Is using the name of my company in the title tag advisable?

Use the name of the company in the title tag only when the name forms a portion of your tag. Most of the SEO‘s advice to either leave them out or to place them at the last of you title tag.

• Is it a go0d idea to use my keyword repeatedly in the title

When The Best SEO Move Is To Kill The Site

The contents of the following column are based on real circumstances. Certain elements have been changed to respect the privacy of each site.

Imagine there are two websites. Here are their basic profiles:

Site One is an e-commerce company and website launched in 2013 that sells nutritional supplements, based in Atlanta, Georgia. They sell to anyone in the US and are heavily dependent on PPC and organic search traffic for their revenue. Due to their insanely high monthly PPC spend, they have also been link building since the day the site launched.

They hired a local SEO firm to do their link building which then (secretly) out-sourced the link building work to a third-party company. At first, things were working great. Their site started ranking well in Google for a number of money terms, only to drop and then vanish completely from the top 100. The site received notification of a manual penalty from Google.

A review of the backlink profile of this site shows it does not have a single link from any site in the Atlanta area. It does not have links from any reputable health, fitness or training blogs. It has paid product reviews and hundreds of anchor text forum links, is part of a link network, and is listed in several hundred directories that most of us have never heard of. 

Site Two is for a Summer Camp for special-needs kids, also located in Georgia. The camp itself was founded in the 1980s and launched a website in the early 2000s. They, too, hired an SEO firm to help them (a different SEO firm than the one Site One hired), and that SEO firm did the work themselves.

This work included conducting outreach to many kids’ organizations and businesses in the Atlanta metro area as well as in Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida, and Alabama, which is where most of their campers come from. Their SEO firm ended up merging with a larger SEO firm, and the camp stopped working with them due to increased cost. The camp then hired the same SEO firm as Site One above. Within six months, Site Two received notification of a manual penalty from Google.

A review of Site Two’s backline profile showed paid reviews and hundreds of anchor text forum links. The site was part of a blog link network and was listed in several hundred directories that most of us have never heard of.

However, Site Two had something else. From the work done by the first SEO firm, they had links from sites such as the Down Syndrome Association of Atlanta, Atlanta Parent, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Autism Speaks, Chattanooga Parent Magazine’s special needs camps directory, and at least 50-75 more links similar in theme and credibility to the ones I just mentioned.

Again, both sites have received a manual penalty. They no longer receive any appreciable traffic from Google.

If you were to consult with both of these sites, what would your recommendations be? More to the point, are the sites salvageable from a Google rankings perspective? Would it be possible to get the manual penalties lifted? Is a reconsideration request worth the time and effort to pursue?

Now What?

For most of us, the answer to the above scenario is fairly obvious. The new nutritional supplement site with zero credibility in its backlink profile (Site One) has a long, long road ahead of it if it ever hopes to receive organic search traffic again from Google.

This road would involve link takedowns, detoxing and disavowal, as well as a content initiative that would actually be worthy of earned links — and that’s all before you can be sure any of it will work. The fact is, some sites are just too far gone to waste more time, money and resources to salvage. I would say that Site One has nothing to salvage, anyway. Kill it.

Site Two is a different story altogether. Here we have a long-standing organization in Atlanta with a 12-year-old website that has attracted many highly credible links, and then made a mistake in hiring an SEO firm that did not have their best interests in mind. The new SEO firm polluted a pristine link profile with junk — enough junk to cause a manual penalty.

My advice to Site Two is that it’s definitely worth it to try to salvage and repair the damage done. I believe they could see their rank restored and reclaim the high positions they once had before the bad links appeared.

If both sites were cleansed of the toxic links, Site Two would still have highly credible links pointing to it, while Site One would have nothing credible pointing at it (because it never did).

This particular example is much easier to evaluate and make a decision about than others. One site was nothing more than a new pure-play e-com site in a highly-competitive niche, while the other site was the online representation of a well-known and highly-credible business that had been in existence for many years, with an established website that had earned many great links.

If only every manually penalized site was as easy to evaluate!

Time To Say Goodbye?

The decision to kill a site can be a painful one, and on more than one occasion I’ve looked at a backlink profile and advised that killing a site was the best move. I have also advised some sites to engage in salvage efforts.

Like so many questions related to links, there is no perfect answer. Numerous factors enter into the equation, perhaps most important of which is history. What was there before the junk arrived? What links will remain if others can be removed?

Nobody can tell you with 100% certainty that a site can be salvaged. It might be worth seeking the help of a third party who is comfortable and experienced with analysis of large backlink datasets.

And, I take no pleasure in reporting that of the many site histories and backlink profiles I’ve studied, in almost two-thirds of the cases I advised that the best move was to kill the site.