Optimizing Your Title Tag
Without question the title tag of your page is the single most important factor to consider when optimizing your web page for the search engines. This is because most engines & directories place a high level of importance on keywords that are found in your title tag. The title tag is also what the search engines usually use for the title of your listing in the search results.
What
it looks like:
Here's the title tag of this page:
<TITLE>Your Title Tag - learn to optimize your title
tag</TITLE>
Where it belongs:
The correct placement for the title tag is between the
<HEAD> and </HEAD> tags within the HTML the makes up
your page.
Tag limits:
We recommend that your title tag be between 50-80 characters long
- including spaces! The length that the different search engines
accept varies, but as long as you keep within this limit you
should be ok.
Tag tips:
-
We recommend that you include 1-2 of your most important keyword phrases in the title tag, BUT be careful not to just list keywords. If you just list keywords you risk being viewed as a spamming the engines which can ultimately lead to you being blacklisted by the search engines. Your title tag should include your keyword phrases while remaining as close to a readable sentence as possible to avoid any problems.
-
Make your title enticing! Don't forget that even if you get that #1 listing in the search engines your listing still needs to say something that makes the surfer want to clickthrough and visit your site.
-
Since the length of your title tag could be a little long for some engines we suggest placing the keywords at the beginning of the tag when possible so that you do not risk having them cut off.
-
Each page of your site should have it's own title tag with it's own keywords that related to the page that it appears on.
