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Send the Right Message with Your Online Advertising and Know Who You Are Targeting Credibility on the Web: How to Build Trust What You Say Determines Who You Get Can You Really Judge Website Pages by Their Titles? Search Engines Do
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Can You Really Judge Website Pages by
Their Titles? Search Engines Do. There is an extremely high consensus among the top SEO minds that your page titles have consistently been the most important on-page optimization factor for ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPS). In fact, Google even states it in their Webmaster Central SEO Starter Guide, and since they own about 70% of search, it’s hard to argue with that.
Excerpt from Google SEO Starter
Guide: "A title tag tells both users and
search engines what the topic of a
particular page is. The <title> tag
should be placed within the <head> tag
of the HTML document. Ideally, you
should create a unique title for each
page on your site . . . The homepage
title might list the business name and
three main focus areas.
If your document appears in a search
results page, the contents of the title
tag will usually appear in the first
line of the results. Words in the title
are bolded if they appear in the user's
search query. This can help users
recognize if the page is likely to be
relevant to their search. The title for
your homepage can list the name of your
website/business and could include other
bits of important information like the
physical location of the business or
maybe a few of its main focuses or
offerings.
The main focuses and/or offerings of
your business should be the keywords you
are optimizing your website for. Website
pages are considered individually by
search engines. Each one can rank for
specific content, apart from the whole.
Keywords used in your page titles are
absolutely essential for a number of
reasons.
1. The page title is shown on the
search engine results pages for a
matched search. That information and
a snippet from your page (usually your
<Meta name="description" tag) will be
all that the potential customer has to
look at when deciding which site he or
she wants to visit.
2. The title of your page is often
used as link text when other sites link
to you. If you have keywords present
in your title, those keywords are
considered anchor text links. Weight is
given to anchor text that links to your
site for the words used. Make sure those
words include your products and
services.
3. Page titles are what is seen in
favorites or bookmarks when a visitor
saves your website address to visit
later. Having a title comprised of
your keywords representing products and
services is advantageous to gain repeat
traffic. In this case "home",
"untitled", "contact" have no place.
They will tell the visitor nothing about
the content of your pages, six months
after they visited your website.
Many RV dealerships have their business
name as the first information in the
website title area. They may also have
the exact same phrase as the title for
every page, or even information that is
not included within the page content.
There are problems with these
approaches.
1. If your business name is creative
or ubiquitous, it may have nothing to do
with your actual products and services.
If your page titles all say “Outdoor
Recreation, Inc.” that won’t help people
find you when they’re searching for
“Winnebago View Motorhomes”.
2. Repeating a
general website title on all pages is
too broad and too vague. Search
engines look for specifics. Visitors
find your pages by searching for
specifics, and selecting your site from
relevant results. In addition, Google
(and the other search engines) will
spider the pages on your site and see 3
(or 30) different pages on the site all
seemingly relevant to one particular
keyword term. Let's say that term is 'RV
Dealer'. Google doesn't interpret this
as meaning that your site as a whole is
more relevant to that term or should
rank higher than your competitors who
also are RV Dealers. Instead, it forces
Google to choose between the many
versions and pick one it feels best fits
the search query. They interpret
duplicate titles to mean duplicate
content. There are a number of
rank-boosting features you lose out on
when this happens:
Internal Anchor Text -
since you're pointing to so many
different pages with the same subject,
you can't concentrate the value of
internal anchor text on one target.
External Links - If
several sites link to your ‘RV Dealer’
pages, chances are they not all pick the
same page. If this occurs you've split
up your external link value among
several pages, rather than consolidating
it into one.
Conversion Rate - If
one page is converting better than the
others, it's a waste to have multiple,
lower-converting versions targeting the
same traffic.
3. The first information in the page
title is the most important. If you
are selling generators on a page, then
Generators should be the first word in
the title. Your business name can follow
if it is a strong brand, but most people
are not searching for you specifically
when they are searching for generators.
They find you when they find your
product.
4. Information in the page title that
is not included in the page content is a
wasted opportunity to use prime internet
real estate. I recently reviewed an
RV and Marine dealer's website. The
website was developed with two distinct
parts, RVs and Boats. The page titles on
the RV section included the keywords
"family boats". The Meta description
included 'boats'. But there were no
boats on any of the pages in the RV
section. The site would have been better
optimized by including RV products and
services as keyword terms, qualified by
their location.
To sum it up there are good and bad
practices for developing page titles.
Some agree they should read well like an
intriguing book title. Others think that
repeating keywords at least twice is
key.
One thing I like to keep in mind is that
page titles are like mini-ads in the
SERPS; A tiny billboard that beckons the
searcher to your website. Make sure you
tell them you have what they are looking
for, in 7 words or less, because they
are flying by faster every day!
440-285-8164 or 888-273-7763
Copyright ©2011 Deborah Finnell
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Internet Advertising vs Traditional Advertising Direct Mail Advertising - What it Teaches Isolate the Components in Your Ads and Determine What works for Your Dealership How Advertising Laws Are Established What is Your Unique Selling Proposition? Content Remains King - Internet or No Internet
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::: direct response :::
message from
dan ::: representation :::
integrity in marketing :::
pay-off now advertising ::: |
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Providing RV dealerships with basic knowledge of search engine and
internet marketing to help them increase purchase ready traffic to
their websites through the use of on page and off page methods.
Building websites since 1995 and performing organic search engine
optimization for RV dealers since 2002, Deborah Finnell of DP Ball
Advertising, will share ideas here that are easy to implement, yet
create a large impact.