Archive for August, 2009

The page title defines the title of the document. It is coded into the page by the web designer. The title tag:

• defines a title in the browser topbar
• provides a title for the page when it is added to favorites
• displays a title for the page in search-engine results

It is extremely important to your site’s search engine ranking, but it is often written incorrectly.

Page titles appear across the top bar of the browser. They tell the visitor and the search engines what the page is about. They allow you to tell the search engines which keywords define your website.

The page title appears across the top of the browser.

The page title appears across the top of the browser.

A title should be able to stand on its own and clearly communicate the contents of the page to the reader.

Titles should always contain your keywords and phrases as they are broadly used by search engines to index what the page contains. Each page of your site can, and should, have its own title. It allows you to steer the search engines to specific pages of the site by keyword. This also allows your website to be found with a larger number of keywords.

Here are some good page titles:

• Cardiology, heart and vascular disease, Pasadena, Southern California Heart Specialists
• Dry Cleaning, Laundry, Free Pickup and Delivery – BRYAN’S Cleaners and Laundry
• Rose Bowl Stadium – Sports, Special Events, Film Location

These titles use keywords and let the searcher know what the site will be about.

Bad page titles which we found on the web:

• BitTorrent
• Ubunto Home Page
• Services

These titles are useless unless the searcher already knows and is searching for a particular company. They do not assist in either page ranking or search visibility.

Search engines, such as Google use the page titles to index the page. They display the page title, or a portion of the title, at the beginning of their results.

Search engines display the page title, or a portion of the title, at the beginning of their results.

The page title is often the first impression a person gets of your website, even before they click to it.

It is very important that you use your keywords in your page title. They should appear before your company name and should appear in order of importance. Put the keyword or phrase you’ve chosen as most important first and then the next most important and so on, ending the title with your company name (see examples above).

Google displays the first 64 characters, including spaces, of the title while Internet Explorer and Firefox displays up to 95 characters. Therefore you should ensure that your keywords are prominent in the first 64 characters.

CityCenter Co. uses the page title “Website Design Los Angeles, CA, web design, redesign, programming – CityCenter Co.” It uses 82 characters with spaces. It is displayed completely in the web browsers. Google displays the title as “Website Design Los Angeles, CA, web design, redesign, programming…” The keywords are all displayed for the searcher to see.

The title is also saved when you bookmark a page. It will remind the user of what the page is about each time he checks his favorites.

Summary:
Page titles using well chosen keywords and phrases assist the search engines to properly index and display your site information. They help the people searching for your company to make an informed decision even before they get to your site. They keep your information in front of users who have bookmarked them.

In the next post we will discuss how to use keywords in creating your website’s content.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most asked about topics in web design. While we do not claim to be experts, we do study what the experts say and understand the basics.

In the next few weeks we will pass some of those basics on to you.

First, let’s define SEO. According to Wikipedia, “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural search results.”

Search engines determine which sites appear on their results pages by the words used on the page. While beautiful graphics, audio and video can help the visitor understand your message, a search engine can only read the words. This makes the words you choose when writing and coding a website of prime importance. Choosing the proper words and using them correctly are what SEO is all about.

Now that we know what it is, we need to know how it is done.

The first thing you need to know is:

         What keywords do you want to be found on?

This might elicit a slew of answers. It also often brings an “I don’t know” response. So how do you decide? Here are some questions that might start you thinking in the right direction.

1. If you were looking to check out your competition, what word or phrase would you search on?
2. What are the most common words used describe what you do?
3. Is there a generic term for your product or service? 

Google Analytics reports are a very good tool for finding the keywords your website can currently be found with.

You can also check to see how people have found you in the past. Check your website’s usage statistics. Most hosts offer a free, or low cost, statistics program. Google offers Google Analytics which is a free service. These programs will tell you what keywords were searched on by people who came to your site.

Once you’ve determined which words describe what your business does there are several things that must be done with them in order to make your site as search engine visible as possible.  

In the next post we will discuss how to use the keywords you’ve found to create powerful web page titles that attract search engines.