Welcome to part 2 of our multi-part series on great search engine optimization practices.
Do you see that blue line on the top of your browser that has the Internet Explorer or Firefox logo in the left corner? That’s called the head tag. Do you ever read the text in that line? Search engines love reading that text, which is called the tag title. In fact, what is written on that line is typically what shows up in the main line of Google searches. For that reason, it is absolutely essential that you write relevant, keyword-focused titles for each Web page.
Here’s an example: If you look up “eHarbor Inc” on Google you will discover the following words in the first line of the first search result: Search Engine Marketing - E-Harbor, Inc. - Home. That is exactly what is at the top of the eHarbor, Inc. home page. It’s good to include the name of your company at the top of each Web page, as well as a brief description of the services you offer or what is on that page.
Content on your website needs to be king if you want to gain repeat traffic, but Web page titles are also essential to help customers find your website in the first place on Google, Yahoo or MSN.
Here are some tips for creating titles for your Web pages:
- Use words that accurately and succinctly describe what is on the page.
- Don’t use too many words, even if they all describe the page’s content. Brevity is often the mark of a great writer!
- Don’t stuff the titles with keywords. Use words that clearly explain the content of the page, but don’t use every word that could possibly describe it.
- Avoid generic terms or simple numbering schemes on your pages, like “Page 1,” “Page 2” and so on.
This is the second part of this series. We’ll discuss optimizing images in the next blog entry on search engine optimization. Be sure to come back to the eHarbor Blog often for updates. Much of the information found in this blog entry comes from Google’s SEO Starter Guide. The photo of the confusing signs is from Flickr and it is the copyright of aturkus.
Tags: Ecommerce, eHarbor, flickr, google, internet, marketing, msn, search engine, search engine optimization, SEO, seo series, web, website, yahoo
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