The title tag is one of the most important factors in achieving high
search engine rankings.
A title tag is essentially an HTML code
snippet that creates the words that appear in the top bar of your Web
browser.
The HTML code for a title tag looks like this:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>XYZ Company Home Page</TITLE>
</HEAD>
The title tag belongs in the <HEAD> section of your source code, and
is generally followed by your Meta description and Meta keywords tags.
The order of these tags is not critical, so don't worry if your HTML
editor places them in a different position.
Some Web site design tools and content management systems (CMS)
automatically generate the title tag from information you provide. You
may have noticed Web pages that are labeled "Page 1," "Page 2," or
"Home Page" in the browser title bar. You'll often see titles like
these being used by beginning Web site designers who simply don't know
how to use their software or their title tag for maximum benefit.
Search Engines and Title Tags
All search engines use title tags to gather information about your Web
site. The words in the title tag are what appear in the clickable link
on the search engine results page (SERP). What you put in this tag is
a key factor in which search queries you will rank highly with in the
major search engines. Title tags are definitely one of the "big
three" as far as the algorithmic weight given to them; they are
equally as important as your visible text copy and the links pointing
to your pages.
Do Company Names Belong in the Title Tag?
For years I was adamantly against "wasting" precious title tag space
on company names. However, now that I work with many well-known
brands, I've altered my thinking on this. I've found that it's fine to
place your company name in the title, and *gasp*, even to place it at
the beginning of the tag! In fact, if your company is already a
well-known brand, I'd say that it's essential. Even if you're not a
well-known brand yet, chances are you'd like to eventually be one. The
title tag gives you a great opportunity to further this cause.
This doesn't mean that you should put *just* your company name in the
title tag. Even the most well-known brands will benefit from a good
descriptive phrase or two added to this tag, as it will serve to
enhance your brand as well as your search engine rankings. The people
who already know your company and seek it out by name will be able to
find you in the engines, and so will those who never heard of you, but
who seek the products or services you sell.
For example, if your company is "Johnson and Smith Inc." and you are a
tax accounting firm in Texas, you shouldn't place only the words
"Johnson and Smith Inc." in your title tag, but instead use something
like "Johnson and Smith Inc. Tax Accountants in Texas."
Title Tags Should Contain Specific Keyword Phrases
As a Texas tax accountant, you would want your company's site to
appear in the search engine results for searches on phrases such as
"Texas tax accountants" and "CPAs in Texas." You would need to be even
more specific if you prefer to work for people only in the Dallas
area. In that case, use keywords such as "Dallas tax accountants" in
your site's title tags. This is a key point: If you're only seeking
customers or clients in a specific geographical region, your keywords
need to reflect that. People looking for a tax accountant in Dallas
may begin their search by simply entering "tax accountant" in the
search engine. However, once they see that their search is returning
accountants from all over the world, they'll narrow the search by
adding "Dallas" to their search terms. When they do, you want your
site to be right there on the first page of new results.
In our Dallas accountants example, you might create a title tag as
follows:
<TITLE>Johnson and Smith Inc. Tax Accountants in Dallas</TITLE>
or you might try something like this:
<TITLE>Johnson and Smith Inc. Dallas CPAs</TITLE>
However, there's more than enough space in the title tag to include
both of these important keyword phrases. (In fact, search engines will
display 60 to 115 characters of your title tag.) Here's an example of
an approach I like even better:
<TITLE>Johnson and Smith Inc. - Dallas Tax Accountants - CPAs in
Dallas, TX</TITLE>
Today's search engines are not case-sensitive; therefore I generally
use initial caps in this tag because it looks the cleanest. I used to
often use ALL CAPS in parts of my title tag because when the engines
were case sensitive, it would give me a different variation of my
phrase. However, ALL CAPS looks somewhat spammy in the SERPs, so I
generally avoid this practice these days.
As for placing the word "Dallas" twice in the title tag, I have found
this approach to be both permissible and effective. Just make sure
that you don't put the same words right next to each other. For
example, a tag that reads "Accountants in Dallas -- Dallas CPAs" may
trigger a red flag with the search engines, possibly making that word
ignored entirely. (Search engines see hyphens and commas as spaces,
which is why they would count that example as the same word next to
itself.) In order to play it safe, it's probably a good idea to not
use any given word more than two times in the title.
Use Your Visible Text Copy as Your Guide
I personally would not be able to create a title tag for any page
until the copy on the page has been written and optimized. I need to
see how the copywriter integrated the keyword phrases into the visible
text copy to know where to begin. If you've done a good job with your
writing (or better yet, hired a professional SEO copywriter), you
should find all the information you need right there on your page.
Simply choose the most relevant keyword phrases that the copy was
based on, and write a compelling title tag accordingly. If you're
having trouble with this, and can't seem to get a handle on what the
most important phrases are for any given page, you probably need to
rewrite the copy.
The optimal approach when writing copy for a Web site is to think of
the main phrases that best reflect your business, and then compose the
text around them. When you write your title tag, you simply revisit
these same phrases, and compose your keyword-rich title accordingly.
I recommend that you *don't* take an exact sentence pulled from your
copy and use it as your title tag. It's my preference to have a
unique sentence or compelling string of words in this tag.
So what if a keyword phrase you want to use doesn't actually appear
within your visible copy? Does this mean you shouldn't use this phrase
in the title tag?
Well, yes and no. Since the title tag is given a lot of weight in the
engines, even if you're not willing to change the text on your page,
you may be able to rank highly simply by placing your phrase in this
tag. Just note that for any phrase that is even slightly competitive,
having it in the title tag and not the copy will generally limit its
overall effectiveness. You'd want to be sure to gain lots of
keyword-rich links to your site in these cases, which can also work in
conjunction with your title.
You'd be better off still if you'd rewrite the text on your page so
that it utilizes the phrases that are important to you. This doesn't
mean to just stick keywords at the top or bottom of the page. It
doesn't mean to hide them in the background. Nor does it mean to put
them in a tiny font so that no one will notice them. If certain
keyword phrases are important enough that you want your site to be
found under them in the search engines, they are certainly important
enough to be elegantly incorporated into the body text of your page.
Once you've incorporated your phrases into the text of your site,
you'll find that creating brilliant title tags that help with branding
as well as with getting found in the search engines is truly a
no-brainer!