Mary Dykas representing ThomasNet

The Importance of Title Tags

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In my last newsletter I mentioned that there are two relatively easy but very important things you can do to improve your ranking with the general search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, etc. At that time we addressed the value of quality back links Today I want to tell you importance of good Title Tags. A small change in your title tags can have a huge effect on your internet activity.

What are title tags?
Each page of your web site has a "title tag". It is a critical piece of information that the search engines use to determine what
your site is all about and what search terms they should rank you under.

Where can I find my title tags?
You can read what is in your title tags by looking at the very top of your screen in the blue bar in white text when you visit your site.

Here is a close up of a title tag from the website below.

Title tag information can be found right at the top of your screen ------


The title tag information originates in your website's html code. You can see the actual code by clicking on "view" in the top menu bar and then click on "source" and you'll see your website's code. Look for the code that looks like this around the top of the page:

<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Prestige Industrial Finishing - Powder Coating Services for Commercial, Military, Medical and Aerospace Industries</TITLE>

 

  
Why are title tags important?
Search engines treat your title tag as the main subject of that web page and therefore they use it to determine which
categories and search terms to place it under. The more focused your web page is on that subject, the more relevant the search engines consider that page to the subject and therefore more likely to be ranked higher under that search term.

If you want to be found under a specific search term in the general search engines, you must include that term in your title tag.
This is very, very important because if you do not have good title tags and your content is not focused on one or two keywords the search engines could be completely misunderstanding what your web page is about.

Here is a tool you can use that will tell you what keyword your web page is focused on now:
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-density/

 
Your title tags are often used by the search engines as the "anchor"
text that visitors link to in order to click through to your website.
Notice that it is important to keep your title tags under 65 characters
to avoid the dropping out of important information.
 
What makes a GOOD title tag?
It is important to realize when optimizing your web pages that search engines search "pages" not "sites". So you must develop a mindset of optimizing each web page individually..

To optimize each web page you need to take a few steps:

1- Create pages that focus on a product and using 1-2 focused keywords. For example, if you sell Retail Point of Purchase Displays and Trade Show Displays. You should have a page for each type of display. If you have text and title tags discussing multiple products on each page you will dilute the focus of that page and the search engines won't rank you highly for any of your products.

2- Research the best keyword(s) for your page. Do a little research on what the most popular keywords are for your category. You can use a variety of keyword suggestion tools. You'd be surprised how a slight variation on a keyword can change the activity. Here are a few useful keyword activity tools:

Yahoo Overture Keyword Tool - http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Google Keyword Suggestion Tool - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal This suggestion tool gives you an idea of the activity of the keyword in relationship to how competitive the keyword is.

Matthew Ryans - E Business Map - You can sit back and just listen to this right from your desktop or download it to your IPOD. http://ebusinessmap.com/ebusiness-map-005-three-steps-to-keyword-research-brainstorming-demand-supply
(I happen to like this whole series but if you want to get serious about your keywords listen to this episode at least)

3- Carry the keyword you use in your title tag throughout the whole page. It is not good enough to have a title tag with your keyword alone. The search engines are going to look for that keyword to be used in the page to make sure that page is really about the subject in the title tag so be sure to use that keyword a few times in the page. Remember focus on 1 or 2 keywords per page. Do not put all your keywords on one page!

Common Mistakes

1- Too many characters in the title tag - Keep it down to 65 or less characters including spaces.

2- The "welcome" tag - You see it all the time "Welcome to ABC Corp." Unless your brand is Coca Cola or IBM you probably are going to want to be found under a search for your product. I understand the value of branding but most new business will probably come to you by companies doing a product and service search. So skip the "Welcome" and use something like "Laser cutting services for the medical industry by ABC Corp". I would put your company name AFTER the product to make sure the search engines get your most important keywords first.

3- Navigation in the title tag - There is no purpose in putting navigation in the title tag such as: "ABC Corp - Products" and "ABC Corp - About Us"; "ABC Corp - Capabilities" . This does not give the search engines any information about your webpage at all except your name.

4- "untitled" - Yes that is right "untitled"! There are 38,000,000 web pages ranked on Google with "untitled" in the title tags and even though some of them may legitimately have "untitled" in their company name most of them are listed under "untitled" because the web developer never bothered to fill out anything at all in the title tag when creating the site. I have one client that has "companyvariable" in the title tag!

 

Taking the time to fix your title tags on your web pages can SIGNIFICANTLY increase your traffic. There is only one exception... if you are already coming up #1 or #2 in the product heading you want to be found under in the general search engines DO NOT TOUCH A THING! Each search engine has its own algorithm and somehow your page fit it. It is possible you have a unique product name or your content is rich focusing on a keyword that the bots picked up so if you are where you want to be don't make a change on that page.

Also, do not think you can out smart the search engines. If you type a keyword in a title tag many times or fill up a page with repeated keywords that don't make sense in the context, they will find this and you will get blocked out of the search engines. It isn't worth the risk! Rely on good focused, relevant content and good optimization techiques that make sense.

One of the benefits of your ThomasNet program is that ThomasNet does the work for you. If you look at this Google search for "Metal Stampings" you will find that ThomasNet has proper title tags and of course great keyword density on the page because all of the advertisers in that category are using the same keywords. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't help round out your internet marketing strategy with your own good title tags.

Of course the most important thing that ThomasNet brings to you is their audience. Engineers and purchasing agents know that the search engines don't always bring the most relevant sites when doing a search primarily because many websites are not optimized properly and there are sites that still know how to "spam" the search engines. ThomasNet's 2 million monthly visitors are serious buyers who know they will find serious suppliers on ThomasNet.com

 

I always appreciate your feed back. If you have any questions about this article or your ThomasNet program, feel free to contact me at mary@trconn.com or (860) 601-0150.

This article was written by Mary Dykas MVP representing ThomasNet