Make people want to click on your listings
Friday 24 April 2009
TAGS: Page titles | Search engine optimisation
What does your website search listing say about your business? Do they make people want to click through to browse your site? If not, why not? Neil M Hancock explains the importance of getting yout listings right.
Not only do your page titles and descriptions influence your rankings but they are also the one promotional tool you have in the search engines.
Lets put this into a normal offline scenario, if you went into a book store looking for a great new murder novel to take on holiday with you, which of the three books below would you pick up and review before deciding whether to purchase;
Book Title 1 – ‘Book Title’
Synopsis 1 – ‘Welcome to our book’
Book Title 2 – ‘Murder Novel | the World of Novels’
Synopsis 2 – ‘books, crime novel, fiction, good book, good novels, good reading, murder fiction, murder novel, new novel, novel, thriller’
Book Title 3 – ‘The Murder by the Old Well – James T. Snape’
Synopsis 3 – ‘Edward has been sentence to death for a murder he didn’t commit; time is running out for Jane to uncover the truth and save her husbands life, will she untangle the facts of a deep secret society determined to stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden?’
I do not claim to be a mind reader, but I am sure you would choose the third book! You would then probably read a little more before deciding whether to purchase the book or continue browsing.
This selection process is identical to that used when searching on a search engine, you mentally scan search results and then select the site which fulfils your requirements. A user would not click on a site that has a poor page title and description if the listing below appears more interesting and relevant.
So if a book’s title and synopsis have such an influence on your selection policy at a book store, surely you should be revisiting your websites page titles and descriptions to make sure they are as equally interesting and relevant to your pages.
If not, I am sure your clients will be!
Neil M Hancock is the Search Marketing Manager at Silverbean. If you have any questions or would like to discuss how Silverbean can help you achieve your marketing objectives through an SEO and Link Building campaign; please contact our resident SEO expert using one of the following.
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