Google is always changing and editing its algorithm but you can not worry about that. They pay 1000’s of people to perfect Internet search, so let them do their job and we will do ours. As web publishers and Internet retailers we just have to try and stay ahead of the curve and make sure that our pages and websites keep getting found among the billions of pages on Google. This is one part of a series of articles I will be publishing on forcing Google to show you and your website some love.

Title tags with your keywords in them- Now title tags used to be more important then they are today but there is no doubt that title tags play a huge factor in how Google sees your site. Google displays your title tag as your title in each search listing on their site. Every single page of your blog, website or store should have title tags. DON’T BE LAZY MAKE TITLE TAGS. Some important factors when creating your title tags are as follows.

• Make sure your title tags are not stuffed with keywords. Key word stuffing used to be the craze back in the day but today it will just hurt your online image as far as Google is concerned. A good title tag can do wonders for your search engine rank in Google but a bad title tag can make Google ignore you. Don’t piss off the boss (Google is our boss in the SEO world weather we like it or not) and make sure your title tags are a good representation of your business with key words carefully placed throughout.

• Below is a screen shot of a Google search for Gold Watches. This image shows you what happens when your title tag gets to be to long. You can see the trailing dots after the second listing. I do not recommend title tags that are this long since Google will cut it off and I believe you will have a higher click through rate when your entire title tag is visible in the search listings. Keep your title tags to 65 characters including spaces.

• Use dividers in your title tags to separate your brand name and key words from each other.  The “|” symbol called the pipe bar is a popular divider as well as the arrow “>” and the hyphen “-”. You can see both the pipe and the hyphen symbol effectively used in the “gold watches” search above.  When using your brand name in the title tag make sure it is separated from your title description or key words with a divider. This is shown above with GoldWatches.com being separated with the “-” from there product descriptions.

• Remember your search audience when creating title tags. Your goal with a title tag is not just to make Google happy and get you listed for your target key words but also to attract users to click on your listing once you get listed. You should have different types of title tags for main index pages, research pages, product description pages etc. For example a main index page that links to your primary website will have a more general title tag. Pages that focus on research articles will need a bit more detailed title that describes the topic and name of the article. If you are selling a product on your page make sure to include terms like “buy XM radios here”, “purchase Movado diamond watches cheap”, “download .99 cent songs from Usher” etc in your title tags.  In this day of SEO you really need to approach titles as copy first keywords second and I think you will be amazed at some of the results and conversions you will get.  Think about if you had a title that pulled in 1000 visitors and only 1 bought something from you because the title was misleading and not descriptive enough or a title that pulled din 50 visitors and 10 bought something. Which would you rather have?

• If your title tag just can not fit everything you need to describe your page maybe you need to create a new page. Making many pages that focus on more focuses content will not only help you in creating more efficient title tags but it will give you more chances of the search engines indexing you for more key words. So if you get to the point where you just can not fit everything you want in your title tag don’t worry, just create more pages with more specific content on each page.

• DONT USE THE SAME TITLE TAG ON ALL OF YOUR PAGES. I will not go into detail about this just don’t do it.

• Keyword proximity is very important in title tags as well as the rest of your website. I feel that keyword proximity is one of the most forgotten and important factors in how Google decides what key words you will be indexed for. Keyword proximity refers to how close your keywords are to each other. Search engines like Google ignore many words referred to as “stop words”. Some stop words are “the”, “and”, “or” etc. Using these words between your main key words is simply breaking the keywords importance. Never break your most important keywords up with stop words. It is important to keep your key phrases as close to each as possible without using “stop words” between them. When properly used keyword proximity can give higher positions in Google results as keyword proximity in the title tag is considered to be one of the most important factors of determining Google search positions.

• Learn from your key word competitors and see what title tags are working for them. There is nothing wrong in the search engine optimization world with taking what your competitor does and trying to one up them. Look at there key word proximity, number of key words in title tag, title length, dividers etc and come up with your own formula to try and move on up the ladder.

If you remember these lessons you should have no problem creating effective title tags that not only make Google happy but attract your dream customers into your website from the Google search listings.

I am interested to see what has worked or not worked for you in the past as far as title tags and SEO is concerned so please feel free to leave comments, thoughts, questions or ideas.

CC Travis

Get Found Inc.

http://GetFoundInc.com