One of the biggest mistakes you can make in blogging (or on any website for that matter) is to not fully utilize your title tags. The title tag has been and will continue to be one of the most important elements in search engine rankings. Title tags are the over-arching descriptor for the page; they communicate with the search engines telling them what each page is about.
So then why is it that so many websites fail to optimize their title tags?
Without question the biggest mistake made by websites is to simply use their blog or company’s name as the title. Take Zales as an example. They are one of the biggest diamond stores around and yet what do we find in the title of their homepage? Nothing that mentions diamonds! Compare this to Luxurien’s website and notice the title of their page.
Luxurien’s title tag is fully optimized with their most important keywords: “Fine Jewelry”, “Titanium Rings”, “Bracelets”, “Tungsten Rings”, and “Gemstone birthstones”. These are keywords for which they would like to place highly in the search engines. So it comes as no surprise that they rank second in Google for the keyword titanium rings.
You might be thinking, “Yes, but what if someone types the name of the company in the search engine? Don’t we want to rank first for that too?” Of course you do, but that is pretty easy to achieve. The competition for the keyword “Luxurien” or “Zales” is pretty low, right? The competition for “diamond jewelry” or “titanium rings” is fierce.
Besides, if someone is searching for Luxurien in the search engines it’s reasonable to believe that they already know who you are as they are already seeking you out. In other words, that fish is already on the hook.
Often times people think they are being smart by putting their keywords first in the title tag and then at the end including the company or blog name. I still don’t recommend this! The reason is because by including the name along with your keywords you have lowered your keyword density.
The website that uses “Internet Marketing” as its title has a higher keyword density than the one that uses “Internet Marketing by Search-This“. If you’re in a competitive market then you need all the edge you can get so I would recommend you drop the name and just stick with the keywords.
It’s believed that the keywords in the beginning of the title tag are weighted more than those in the middle or end. So be sure to place your most important words in the beginning of your title tag.
Finally, it’s also believed that a character limitation exists and is set to around 60 characters. So again, keep your title tags short and focused.
For review, your title tags:
- should contain the keywords for that particular page
- should not include your blog or company name
- should be short and concise
- should have the most important keywords first
- should not include words like “the”, “by”, “that”
- should be unique for every page
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