Formatting the Title Tag
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Back to the basics for a minute – let’s talk about how to create the ideal title tag. There are several best practices that, in my opinion, make a big difference for the major effects you’re shooting for in title tag optimization (CTR in the SERPs, rankings at the search engines and value to users as navigational data).
In the simplest situation, you’ve got 3 pieces of data to convey:
* Company or Website name (for branding and ID purposes)
* Location in site architecture (if on a non-landing specific page)
* Keyword term or phrase targeted for search traffic
There are several ways to put this information together. Examples are probably the best way to show this:
1. SEO | SEM | Articles >> Beginner’s Guide to SEO
2. Beginner’s Guide to SEO | SEO | SEM Articles
3. Articles >> Beginner’s Guide to SEO from SEO | SEM
4. SEO | SEM | Beginner’s Guide to SEO
5. SEO Beginner’s Guide
In most situations where you have or are attempting to build a long-term brand online, configuration #1 is preferable – it accomplishes all of the goals sucessfully. However, certain situations demand more attention to keyword usage, or don’t require navigational structure, in which case, #2 or #4 might be options. If you need to be “ultra-optimized” (mostly for Yahoo! or MSN purposes), #5 is also a choice.
What to avoid:
1. SEO | Beginner’s Guide to SEO from the SEO experts at SEO | SEM
2. Beginner’s Guide to SEO where you’ll learn all the basics about the subject from industry leaders at SEO | SEM
3. ||>>|| SEO | SEM ||<<|| Beginner’s Guide to SEO
#1 – No need to run on and sound unnatural. #2 will never be seen or read and run-on titles appear highly unprofessional. #3 may look like it stands out in the SERPs, but Google and the other engines have been cracking down on overuse of non-letter characters, even those characters they would normally display.
If you’re dealing with the need to optimize for multiple terms/phrases on a page, the best thing you can do is to cleverly combine them in a phrase or short sentence. Using comma separation is a surefire way to look spammy. For example:
* Cellphones, ringtones, Nokia
Cellworld | Covering the cellphone world from ringtones to Nokia
* Glass art, glassblowing, Dale Chihuly
Glas.com | The art of glassblowing & glass art from masters like Dale Chihuly
* Dell, Gateway, Compaq, Lenovo
CPUStyle | Machine comparisons from Dell, Gateway, Compaq, Lenovo & more
I know I just broke the comma rule, but since it makes sense and fits logically…
The important point to remember is that the evolution of search technology means that its less and less important to make the targeted KW first in the title tag or repeat it multiple times or avoid too much additional text. What’s good for the visitor is, largely, what’s good for the engines.
dyn4mik3
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:19 pm
One additional thing I like keeping track of:
How the titles look after being bookmarked.
Is it easy to refer back to the bookmark and tell what the page is about? Is the bookmark title cut off? Does the title make you want to click?
Sooner or later the engines will start to consider bookmarks for personalization – you can get a head start by optimizing your titles now.
randfish
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Great point – search engines might even want to know ho folks are renaming the title when they add it to their bookmarks…
bookworm seo
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Good practical aspect. Ties in with tips further down about CTR. We’re optimizing for clicks right? Better #2 with more CTR than #1 with 0 CTR…
Thomas Holmes
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Rand – when you say that the search engines are ‘cracking down on overuse of non-letter characters’, do you mean they are removing these characters from the search results? or that they are penalising these pages? or something else?
Looks like you’re back to two-handed typing again! i’m down to one foot walking…
Thanks for the great tips as ever!
randfish
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Sorry – by crackdown, I just mean removing, not penalizing. Thanks for asking, Thomas.
premius
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Thanks for the tips Rand, I usually use dashes in my title tag, as in this blog – Beginner’s Guide to SEO not sure whats better though a dash or a | ?
EGOL
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:22 pm
There is another point for optimization. That is… “What will earn the click, or seduce the click”.
For retail, consider putting your #1 value proposition in the title tag. A slammer price or immediate shipping might get you clicks. I hold #2 positions in lots of SERPs right below the publisher – but I sell at discount while they sell at MSRP. If I have a price that is $10 less, and shout that in my title tag – who do you think gets the sale? (-:
For info sites a question in the title gets clicked more IMO.
“Free Beer” will bring them in too.
randfish
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Very, very good point EGOL. There are certainly SERPs we’ve seen where the #1 listing doesn’t generate as much traffic as #2 or #3… I wonder if/when this will have Google flip-flopping those positions
EGOL
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 pm
So, we have defined title tag optimization for:
1) SERP performance
2) Branding
3) CTR
4)
What can we put in there at #4? How about KW reach… getting a second or third strong KW in the title tag so your page does battle in multiple SERPs.
(I’ve been holding #2 or #3 on this competitor for nearly three years. I think that google will keep them always at #1 because they are “The Man” in this niche – and will always be (PR7 page on a PR9 site). However, in other situations my CTR might prevail.)
globusinternet
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 pm
What when selling services ? does buying words in title tag count to the CTR ?
GeoffreyF67
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:24 pm
They might be cracking down on them but they still haven’t caught all those funny chars yet.
aaron wall
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:24 pm
I like giving some things long randomish names to force people to mix up the anchor text, and then sometimes later renaming them to shorter useful more brandable names.
Get the quick hit on great anchor text mixing and whatnot, then try to look official afterwards
Coburn
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:25 pm
EGOL – #4 kw density on pg – w/o this, #1 won’t happen.
Yes, everyone here is presuming it, if a newby reads this thread they would not know about it.
Randfish – surprised at your emphasis on branding. Can’t help wondering how much SERP sacrifice you’ll incur by placing your brand kw phrase 1st on most content pages for eg.
Also – have you measured any differences in CTR between characters “|” and “-”?
EGOL
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Hello Coburn,
I agree with you on having some KW density on page for #4 to happen. You don’t need a high density but it does help a lot to have those words there – and H2 and/or anchor text is a great way to go.
I have some sites that I want to brand but other sites that are not good branding candidates and there I go simply for SERP performance. But, if you do have a recognizable brand then it is sometimes actually an optimization for CTR by including it – so it accomplishes two goals.
CarlenLea
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Thank you for giving me yet another source to quote when I try to explain this to my clients!
nookie
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:29 pm
hi, i’m completely new to the SEO field.is there maybe a newbie section i can start posting questions on?
one question for now: is there a “inanchor” equivalant for yahoo searches?
randfish
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:29 pm
nookie – you can try the beginner’s guide
bookworm seo
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:30 pm
I’m almost convinced about the comma spammy thing. Except that a certain prominent blogging Googler uses them.
Let’s play hangman:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _: G _ _ _ _ _ _, G _ _ _ _ _, and SEO
Rob Stevens
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
Too easy.
Ian Charles
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:31 pm
$ in title tag
An “SEO expert” i know says don’t put the price in the title tag because it’s regarded as a scam. This obviously isn’t something Egol has observed – anyone else got any thoughts? I do a lot of adwords, and I use $ signs all the time, I think it’s crucial for CTR.
SEO Guru
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:23 am
It’s good to know for seo learners but you should mention length and number of characters for a good title tag.