What is the perfect title tag?
Thursday 11 March 2010
TAGS: Page titles | Search engine optimisation
The title tag has been, and probably always will be, the most important ‘on-page’ factor in achieving high search engine rankings. Neil M Hancock, Search Marketing Manager at Silverbean explains his thoughts into the 'perfect' page title.
So what is the ‘perfect’ title tag? Well unfortunately there is no ‘perfect’ title tag but I am going to highlight a good way of designing your page title as well as answering a few queries you may have regarding the page title.
So, what is a title tag and where can I find it?
The title tag is one of the three most important areas of search engine optimisation, along side, page copy and incoming links. The title tag is also one of the two important ‘meta data’ tags, along side the Meta description tag.
The title tag is found in the page header of your websites code in the tag called <title>. The title tag also appears in the blue header at the top of your Internet browser when viewing a website, and finally it also appears as the blue underlined text in the search results of the search engines.
As you can see the title tag is a very useful website tag and a good title tag is paramount.
1.) Should my title tag contain my company name?
This is an area of real debate in the search engine optimisation industry and you can find very ranging opinions on this matter. In my personal educated opinion, I think it is not necessary to include your company name on every page title; however it can be used in your page title AFTER the important keywords.
The reasons I believe this is true are;
- There are alternative areas where your company name appears in the search engine; therefore it is not necessary to included it in your page title. Below is an extract of the Money Supermarket car insurance page from Google, Money Supermarket, as of Thursday 11th March 2010, are number 1 for ‘car insurance’ on google.co.uk.
Car Insurance | compare cheap motor insurance quotes …
Read our car insurance guide to learn how to find the cheapest motor insurance…Get cheaper car insurance and learn how to lower your risk for UK motor…
www.moneysupermarket.com/motor/?Source=MSN3 - Cached
You will notice that they do not include their company name in the page title! However you instantly know its Money Supermarket because in green it says moneysupermarket.com!
- The second reason, which will be discussed in greater detail in point 3, is keyword positioning, the closer to the start of the sentence the keyword is the more ‘value’ is has on the page title. Each page has its own page title, therefore the page title should be a ‘teaser’ for the page itself, this means each page should be designed to promote the service and/or product the page is about, and not the brand name.
- A good page title should have a high keyword density percentage for the important keyword(s) the page is going to describe. Do not waste valuable characters on your brand name, as it will reduce the keyword density of the page title. However depending on the strength of your brand in the industry, it could be useful as a closing point on your page title.
- If people are searching for your brand name, owning the domain alone should be enough to rank your website for the search term. They will be able to find your brand without needing to over promote the domain name. As you can see in the above example, you instantly know it’s for Money Supermarket.
2.) Should my title tag contain popular key phrases?
The simple answer is undoubtedly YES!!! If people are searching for you brand name and/or company name they will be directed to your home page with minimal competition, however if people are indecisive about which company to use for a specific service or product then you need to be found for that search term.
In short, if you sell car insurance, and you have a page all about your car insurance, they the page MUST included the term ‘car insurance’. The page title provides the search engines with a hint as to what the page is about. Therefore it would be a fundamental sin not to include the main keyword in your page title.
3.) Does it matter what order I put my keywords in?
Once again the answer is undoubtedly YES!!! The page title is read from left to right; therefore what ever appears on the left is more important that what appears on the right, this is logical. Therefore promote your main keyword(s) as near to the left-hand side of your page title as possible.
It is also important to note that in Google only the first 60 characters are shown, therefore anything coming after 60 characters is wasted, and if your main keyword is after the 60 character mark you will not be promoting your website for that phrase.
The page title is the equivalent to a headline on a newspaper article, it needs to be used to catch people’s attention and the main point of the page needs to be predominant in the page title
4.) What if I have many services/products, how do I promote them all in one page title?
This is a question that I get asked a lot, the simple answer is that your website is a collection of individual pages and not one complete website. By this I mean each page has its own page title and should be used to promote the one service or product the page content is about.
5.) Should I use | (Pipe’s) , (Comma’s) or – (Hyphen’s)?
There is no regulation and no proven better method of using keyword separators. Personally, I prefer using | (Pipe’s) as they split the keywords up and are aesthetically more pleasing, however all three methods have the same affect with regards to ranking.
These keyword dividers are usefully as they can replace unimportant words like ‘and’ saving you a few extra important characters.
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.