Search Engine Optimization -- Titles
October 28, 2003 | 
10 Comments
If you’re arriving here via a Google search on “Search Engine Optimization” — Congrats! You’re in the right place.
One of the best things you can do for your site is learn how to write good titles for your pages. This not only helps google (and any other search engine) find your site and provide searchers with relevant results, but helps your users and other sites that would like to link to you.
I get quite a bit of traffic though here via google and from checking my refers and looking at the search terms I can see that the vast majority of those visits are relevant to the search terms they are using. In other words — they’re getting what they’re looking for.
The reason why I that I put time and effort into the titles of my entries. I think about what the user would search for and I (usually) write my title to best mirror that.
Here are a few things tips to help you write better page titles.
Say what you mean - If you are writing an article on “Search Engine Optimization” say that in your title.
Put the most relevant information first (usually) - If you note the title of this page I put “Search Engine Optimization” first, even though this entry is actual specific to writing titles. The reason why is that most people looking to optimize their sites are going to search for “Search Engine Optimization” or “seo” rather than “title” or “writing titles”.
Don’t use ambiguous words - This entry is about writing titles, however, the word “title” isn’t specific enough to ensure relevant results. You search for “title” with SEO in mind and you’ll get all sorts of irrelevant results.
Use “trigger” words - If possible, use words that are a call to action, or at the least are the kinds of words people will search for. This may take some trial and error and understanding of your users, but can help quite a bit.
Need help? Consult Overture’s Suggestion Tool - There are lots of times where you might need to choose between two different relevant terms, or you might not be sure at all what to use. In those cases use the Suggestion Tool. You type in a term or phrase and it will give you a number of searches on that term or phrase. Be careful though, some results can be misleading.
For example, in writing the title for this entry I considered using “SEO” instead of “Search Engine Optimization” as it had a higher number of searches. To double check I ran a search of my own and found that a search for “SEO” resulted in quite a few results that had nothing to do with search engine optimization. There are organizations called SEO and the like, I guess “SEO” stands for more than “search engine optimization”.
Don’t get clever - If you use a clever title you’ll get all sorts of irrelevant visits to your site. Unless you want that, avoid that kind of creativity and focus on what the page is actually about.
Keep it short - The shorter and more precise your title the better. Don’t try and cram extra keywords into your title, this will dilute your relevant results.
Be careful with unique titles and the like - Things like movie titles, band names and book titles can be tricky to write for. For example if you are writing a review of a Postal Service album you can be fairly sure you’re not going to get a whole lot of good results from the term “Postal Service” as it has another meaning. A good title might be “Postal Service Band” or “Postal Service Music Review”. This one is tricky.
In closing I just want to reiterate that writing proper page titles can be one of the best things you do for your site. It’s not all that hard and the benefits to your user and your traffic can be huge. Google is a great search tool, getting better every day, but by writing proper titles we can do quite a bit towards helping those poor lost souls on the Web find what they are looking for.
For more on search engine optimization, read Practical Search Engine Optimization and if you want some advice or help optimizing your site for search engines, I’m available for consulting
Filed under: Web General
Comments
1. patrick h. lauke said:
to this no-frills, common sense rundown i would also add the following (although this may or may not only be my personal opinion): beware of digital snake oil merchants, promising all sorts of “we’ll get you to number 1 for all sorts of relevant and irrelevant search terms” for a hefty fee. sure, there are of course legit consultants out there, such as yourself…but some of the practices i’ve seen and heard of (overloading meta keywords, and all those “so 90s” tricks like text the same colour as the background, abusing ALT attributes, multiple targetted entry pages for each search bot), combined with the “we’ll submit your site to all search engines known to man” are but a short-term solution (and in many cases outright unethical). the best advice i always give is: make your pages relevant, well structured, use the right wording (including specific trigger words, but in a natural way), and promote linking to your pages.
Posted on October 28, 2003 11:14 AM | #
2. Keith said:
Good points Patrick, that’s why I love comments!
I really wanted this to be something that any site owner can read and help themselves out, so your advice is very appropriate.
While I’m offer my own services (no digital snake oil there!) I also realize that once a client takes a site over it’s resources like this that will help them stay successful well after I’m gone.
Posted on October 28, 2003 11:20 AM | #
3. jackal said:
Fantastic advice!
I’m slowly easing my way into the marketing aspects of websites and things like that, and search engine optimization is on the top of the list. You nailed a few of my questions on the head, thanks.
–Mike
Posted on October 28, 2003 03:42 PM | #
4. James said:
Interesting thoughts. Just a question - I realise that this is about SEO, but I am always in conflict as to whether to place the site name first. I realise that this will dilute the search results, but from a usability point of view it provides organised bookmarks and makes tabbed browsing or multiple browser windows a lot easier to manage. Your thoughts???
Posted on October 28, 2003 09:12 PM | #
5. Keith said:
James - I think on a home page, you have the site name for sure. Then, depending on the nature of your site I think it makes the most sense to have the site name come after (if at all) the most relevant information.
For example: Widgets > Products > Acme Co.
On many sites, like this one for example, you don’t necessarily need the site name on every page. You regular users (the ones that count the most) will already know where they are. New users that arrive via any other means than the homepage (which should have the site name) should be able to get a gist of what the site is about from the design, logo and any persistent nav.
It really depends on the type of site, the sites users and the goals as to whether or not to include the site name on every page. But I’d always recommend to put it after the title of the page.
Posted on October 29, 2003 09:37 AM | #
6. alex-and-r said:
Thanks for this entry! it’s helpful!
And here is my question about Overture’s Suggestion Tool: On results of what search engine is it based? Google?
Posted on October 30, 2003 12:43 AM | #
7. Kristian said:
Alex, I was assume it’s reflecting results from AlltheWeb.com, which seems to be their flagship search engines. With all the buying and selling Overture was involved in, I’m not sure what else they own, and I believe Yahoo! bought them recently!
Posted on October 30, 2003 12:25 PM | #
8. Tom V said:
First off let me just say I have no idea what the Florisa-Austin updates are but what I do know is I don’t get any traffic coming in anymore.
I don’t know anything about SEO but I was hoping someone could suggest a good search engine optimization company. That company their has sent me sevearl emails but their prices seem a little too high for a non-profit organization. Any help (no Bcentral please)
Posted on February 5, 2004 09:26 AM | #
9. Jemaleddin said:
Interestingly, google juice makes for strange search results even with good titles. I got here via link seven on a google search for: “lyrics postal service nothing better” =-)
Posted on July 9, 2004 11:39 AM | #
10. Keith said:
Jemaleddin – You got to this post itself? Not my post about the Postal Service and Nothing Better. I realize I don’t have lyrics there, but I think if you found my site from that search it’s more relvant than most results.
But that’s not to say I don’t agree with you…The thing is, I don’t blame Google, I blame the folks who use funky titles on their pages.
Posted on July 9, 2004 12:04 PM | #
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