The Title tag informs the search engines of the content of each page and what it’s about and is used in determining the relevancy of a page for search queries. It is the headline of your search result listing and sits atop of the browser window. The Title acts as the name of the website and as a result should be accurate, descriptive and incorporate the keywords you are optimizing your site for.
The Title tag is still one of the most important on-page ranking factors for your website. The importance of getting your Title tags written correctly cannot be understated as this remains to be a vital component of top ranking web pages.
The amount of words and characters that make up the length of your optimized Title tag should not exceed 75. Google seems to display 64 characters in the search engine results pages (SERPs) while Yahoo and MSN display around 5 characters more. These three search engines will index more than the displayed amount of words for sure but you should keep in mind how the Title reads to the search engine user as it is displayed in the results. When you, yourself scan search engine result listings how do you decide which of the listings to click-through to first?
Statistics show that the first four listings have a much higher click-through rate than the remaining 6 as these are ‘above the fold’. A compelling Title tag will give you a higher possibility of a click-through than a result listing with a Title tag of just keyword after keyword or just a company name. There are also a fair amount of users who scroll down to view the top 10 listings for a keyword search and either find a listing that attracts them or they refine their keyword search to be a little more specific.
There are a lot of long Title tags out there in the search results so to be able to develop a Title tag that reads well within the displayed text before the search engine cuts it off and adds the ellipsis is a key to better click-through rates. The top search engines do index the remaining Title text so if the web page calls for it, a long title tag of 100 or so characters can be used. It is often better to add a new web page to your website to cover the additional keywords further in-depth. As with each additional page you will have an additional opportunity to have that new page indexed and ranked in the top search engines for those remaining keywords. Be aware though, the longer the Title tag the more diluted the keyword density becomes.
Since ‘stop words’ are ignored by the search engines you should consider using them to make your Title more understandable and hopefully compelling for the user. Although the less stop words you use in your Title tag the better the overall ranking result will be.
The location of your targeted keyword phrase will perform better when at the beginning of the Title tag. The keyword proximity, which is the distance between the keywords, will hold the advantage when they are closer together. The linear order of the words in making up the most effective Title tag is best accomplished when written in typical everyday language. Not only will it read better but the search engines will most likely also index your page for the right keywords. Repeating the main keyword in your Title tag is appropriate when properly formatted. You should never repeat the same keyword side-by-side or more than three times in the same Title.
For keyword research or to have your tags properly optimized throughout your web pages just contact us for a free quote or call us directly at (610) 768-0357
