Yeah. I went there! I named this post Optimizing Title Tags even though I am painfully aware that it should be about how to optimize the HTML title element. But it seems that most people don’t know the difference between an HTML element, an HTML starting/ending tag, and an HTML attribute. They seem to use the word tag to refer to all of them.
So don’t be offended if I mix the two in this post. I DO know the difference!
Why is the title tag important to optimization?
Optimizing your page’s title tag is a very important step in on-page optimization for several reasons:
- It is typically displayed prominently on the first line of your listing in the organic search engine results pages (SERPs).
- It is displayed in the browser title bar (the blue bar across the top of your browser).
- It is the single MOST influential on-page ranking factor considered by most search engines in their ranking algorithms.
Since it’s usually displayed as the first line of your SERP listing, the title tag is often your URL’s first impression to those users performing searches at the various search engines. Users usually scan the title tag and snippet of text immediately following it in the SERPs to determine whether the content located at your URL is relevant to their search. So optimizing your title tag accurately depict the content that can be found on your page can dramatically influence your URL’s CTR (as can the snippet that is displayed).
As far as on-page optimization is concerned, the title tag has the most influence on how your URL ranks for its targeted keyword phrase(s). Because of this, it deserves a bit of research and analysis. Don’t just set title tags in a willy-nilly fashion across your site.
Optimizing your Title Tag Starts with Keyword Analysis
For many webmasters and content managers, deciding on what to write about comes first. Too often they write the content first with no consideration for optimization, and optimizing the content becomes an afterthought. I don’t agree with this approach unless it’s for some time sensitive piece of content that you have to get on the wire within a very short amount of time (like within minutes or an hour).
It’s okay to pick a topic ahead of time, but IMO before writing a single word it’s best to do some keyword analysis to determine which keyword phrases related to that topic are searched for the most and which keyword phrases have the most competition.
So do yourself a favor. Pick a topic and perform some keyword analysis on it before writing your conten. You can perform this keyword analysis free on the web with just a web browser and a spreadsheet program of some sort to make recording the results simple. It’s well worth the investment of a few minutes of your time. Knowing exactly which keyword phrase(s) that you are targeting makes the content generation process and optimization process much easier.
How to Optimize Your Title Tag
Generally speaking, each page on your site should target a single keyword phrase. Sometimes it’s okay to target two or three keywords if they are VERY similar (as in different by only a single keyword modifier), but in general you want your content focused on a single phrase.
There are a couple of key tips to remember when optimizing a title tag (or other HTML elements or attributes which are considered ranking factors):
- The search engines typically evaluate individual HTML element values and attribute values which are ranking factors (like <title>, <h1>, <h2>s, the alt attribute of the <img> element for image links, the link text of an <a> element, etc.) similar to the way they evaluate the overall page, except on a smaller scale.
- Keywords near the beginning of the element value or attribute value are considered more important than those near the end similar to the way content near the top of the page is considered more important than content near the bottom of the page.
- Keyword density within the element value or attribute value is also important just as keyword density on the page is important.
NOTE: One of the most common title tag optimization mistakes made by webmasters is placing your site name or domain name in the title of every page on the site. This only makes it harder for your URL to rank for it’s “real” targeted keyword phrase(s). It tells the engines you want every page on your site to rank for your domain name, when your home page should already do so once it has a few inbound links with the the domain name as the link text. Having your domain name in the title tag reduces the keyword density of the importnat words in the title.
If you performed some keyword analysis prior to writing your content, optimizing the title tag becomes a cinch. If you were the victim of time, lack of planning, or whatever and did not perform any keyword analysis before writing your content, then all is not lost. You can use Google’s external Adwords keyword tool to get suggestions for the keyword phrase(s) your content should target. You can enter the content into a textbox in the UI and it will suggest keyword phrases to target based on the content.
From your analysis you should come up with a single targeted keyword phrase (possibly two or three if, as I mentioned, they are VERY similar). If you have decided to target multiple keyword phrases because they are very similar, then the only work to be done in is to order them from most important (primary targeted keyword phrase) to least important.
Based on your keyword analysis, the value of your title tag should be similar to the following:
<title>Primary Phrase</title>
<title>Primary Phrase – Secondary Phrase</title>
<title>Primary Phrase – Secondary Phrase – Tertiary Phrase </title>
depending on whether you are targeting one, two, or three keyword phrases, respectively.
Example of optimizing a title tag
I frequently use the lending vertical as examples for search engine optimization techniques. In keeping with this, I’ll use it as an example of how to optimize a title tag.
Assume that I have performed my keyword research and decided to target the phrase “mortgage loans” because its much less competitive than “mortgage” and “mortgages” but still gets a lot of search query volume. Assume also that I would like to target “mortgage home loans” as a secondary keyword phrase since it is very similar and gets slightly fewer searches.
In this case I might construct the following title tag:
<title>Mortgage Loans – Mortgage Home Loans</title>
Not only is my primary keyword phrase “mortgage loans” first in the title tag, its individual keywords “mortgage and loans” both appear twice in the title with a 40% density each. My secondary keyword phrase “mortgage home loans” appears as the 2nd phrase indicating that it is less important the “mortgage loans”, but still important. The word “home” has a keyword density of 20%, much less than that of “mortgage” and “loans”.
After optimizing the title tag, what’s next?
Once you’ve optimized your title tag, all other on-page optimization where possible should reinforce the targeted keyword phrase(s) from the title (or slight variations of those phrases). This should include the page URL, the <h1>, <h2>s, <h3>s, bolded text, etc. Look for future posts about how to optimize these other on-page ranking factors.
