Title Tags - Ignore Them at Your Own Peril

1. Make sure every single page of your website has an individual title tag written specifically for each page.
2. Keep them short. Many search engines only index no more than the first 80 characters of a title tag.
3. Start with the most important keywords. Since search engines may only index the first 80 characters, make sure your most important keywords are at the beginning of the tag.
4. No keyword stuffing. Remember that the title tag appears in the browser frame and in search engine results, and your visitors will read them. Write the title tag with your visitors in mind - search engine optimization should not decrease your visitors' experience of your site.
5. Put your company name at the end of a title tag or leave it out. Unless you are trying to optimize for your company name (because it is searched a lot or because it contains relevant keywords), either place your company name at the end of a title tag or leave it out altogether - you can use the space for more important keywords. But on some pages, it is probably a good idea to include your company name - for example on your homepage or your contact page.

While the title tags is the most important of the meta tags for search engine optimization purposes, you also should have optimized keyword tags and description tags to provide search engine spiders with relevant information for indexing. If you are sure what keywords to optimize for or would like some professional meta tag copywriting, check out our Optimizer Kit PLUS service. Alternatively, the Business Essentials service progressively optimized one page of your website per month.

Posted by Nancy Hackett at 2:08 AM GMT