Writing a Title Tag that Works for Your Website

Your title tag is an important part of your on-page search engine optimization efforts. It is a portion of your webpage that search engine spiders find very easy to scan over, so if it is done correctly, it will contribute directly to the success of your results.

The following changes to your title tag will help to better the ranking you achieve, and will therefore improve the number of targeted traffic you'll have visiting your website:

- Include your keywords and key phrases in your title tag. Think of your title tag as a kind of store sign. Now, imagine that you are a customer, walking down the street and looking for a product, but cannot see inside the shops. So you can only read the signs. If you want to know where to buy the product you have in mind, you'll be relying on the signs to guide you to the right shop. If the sign says "Bob's Place", you're not going to learn very much. However, if the sign says "Jenny's Painting and Art Supplies" you'll have a much better chance at knowing whether or not the product you're searching for is inside. Even if Bob's Place had a much larger range of painting and art products, and at better prices, the sign didn't tell you what was inside, so you went to Jenny's Painting and Art Supplies instead. This is exactly how the internet works. When prospective customers seek out a product using a search engine, they cannot see what is available at the website. They can only see what is in the title and description tag of the site. Furthermore, without using the right keywords within the title tag, search engine spiders may not be able to tell what your site is all about, and therefore may not rank it very highly in the right category. To make search engines work for you, you need to include your title tag in your search engine optimization strategy. If you happen to be selling painting and art supplies, make sure that the key phrase painting and art supplies is included in that title tag. When you do, you will dramatically increase your chances of being ranked higher in the search engines for your terms, and will be much more customer-friendly once you're listed. For that reason, you have to make sure that not only will your title tag include the right keywords and key phrases, but it should also make sense to the prospective visitors to your site who will be reading it.

- Be certain to put your keywords and key phrases in the right order. Putting your keywords and key phrases in your title tag is only a part of the process. By placing it there, it allows the terms to become visible to search engine spiders. But there is more to it than just jamming the words in anywhere. Consider the following title tag examples:

1. Jenny's painting and art supplies

2. Painting and art supplies at Jenny's

Both of these examples are human-friendly, since they both make sense with regards to what they're about. However, when it comes to search engines, it is the latter example that will make "painting and art supplies" the primary search terms, since they occurred first. It is typically most effective to include your company name or website name at the end of the title tag, and include the most relevant keywords and key phrases first.

- Make sure your title tag is attractive and legible to the reader. Though this won't mean very much to the search engine spiders scanning over your web pages, it will help you get the attention of people scanning over the search results and deciding which ones to choose. Consider the following examples:

1. PAINTING AND ART SUPPLIES BY JENNY

2. PaInTiNg AnD aRt SuPpLiEs By JeNny

3. Painting and Art Supplies by Jenny

Though many people would automatically say that the third example is the most attractive, while the first and second examples are unappealing because of the improper use of capitalization, there is more to consider than that. In the first example, using all capital letters takes away from the importance you may wish to give a certain term, and may actually be penalized by some search engines. In the second example, the words are very challenging to read, and are a turn-off to many readers. It is indeed the third example that works the best.