HTML optimization : the Title tag (2nd part)

January 28th, 2008

In our previous article “HTML optimization : the Title tag (1st part)” , we focused on precisely defining the TITLE tag. In this second part, you will learn how to calibrate the TITLE tag for an optimal SEO.

How do I write the Title tag of my web pages ?

The essentials

A different TITLE tag for each page

It is strongly recommended that each page has a different TITLE tag. This title must reflect the web page content at best. You should not repeat the same title on every pages. You would miss the opportunity to vary keywords. In theory, you should not have two pages of your website with the same TITLE tag.

An understandable title

A good SEO requires to avoid a meaningless succession of keywords for the TITLE tag. Give your users the lust for click ;-). If you look at the Google results for the keyword “mp3 player”, you will find that the TITLE tag is brought by Google in the list (circled in red).

google mp3 player serp

Shape your TITLE tag with your best slogan, without beeing too catchy.

For example, <TITLE>MP3 Player – Get yours now !</TITLE>

Avoid, <TITLE>MP3 Player, small price, buy, sell, compare, best price</TITLE>.

The keywords

The TITLE tag of your web pages must include your most important keywords. In general, keywords at the beginning of the title have a better impact on your web page SEO.

For example, for the keyword “MP3 Player”, this title

<TITLE>MP3 Player – Buy yours now</TITLE>

is better than,

<TITLE>Compare and buy your MP3 Player</TITLE>

The size

The right TITLE tag size changes from a search engine to another. Still, SEO professionnals generally agree around 60 characters, which is about 10 words.

Going deeper

Applying the previous tips from above should already impact your SEO significantly. You can go further thought.

Head of the file

Insert this short portion of HTML code near the beginning of the file. Place it just after the <HEAD> opening tag and after the CHARSET META tag. This will enable the use of accented characters in the TITLE tag.

The following example shows how to set your web page charset as “ISO-8859-5” (which allows to use accented characters).

<META http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=ISO-8859-5″>

Here is a comprehensive example of a well-formed TITLE element,

<HTML>
<HEAD>
   <META http-equiv=content-type content="text/html; charset= ISO-8859-5">
   <TITLE>España, great destination for your holidays</TITLE>
... other head elements ...
</HEAD>
<BODY>
... body of the document ...
</BODY>
</HTML>

The shape of the title

It is generally assumed that it is better to shape your TITLE with “sentence with keyword + website name” instead of “website name + sentence with keyword”.

For example, for the keyword “MP3 Player”, the title

<TITLE>MP3 Player – Get your portable media player – HighTechDiscount</TITLE>

is better than,

<TITLE> HighTechDiscount – MP3 Player – Get your portable media player</TITLE>

Warning

Many successive modifications of a web page TITLE tag can be penalizing for young website. It is generally assumed that the TITLE can often be changed on pages that already have traffic coming from search engines, not for the new ones. As the webmaster of a young website, be full of patience.

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HTML optimisation : the Title tag (1st part)

January 28th, 2008

We start today with our first phase on HTML code optimization. This article is dedicated to the Title tag. If you are new to HTML, you will find a short introduction (the basics) in our previous article “HTML for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)”.

What is the Title tag ?

If you look at the HTML code of the following web page, mp3 player – Google search (right click + View source in Internet Explorer), you can find the following piece of code at the beginning of the file,

optimization title code

This part of code

<title>mp3 player – Google search</title>

is used to display in the title bar of the Google result page the text “mp3 player – Google search”

title in browser

The Title tag, according to the HTML 4.01 standard

The HTML 4.01 standard stands that :

  • each HTML document must have one and only one TITLE element,
  • this TITLE element must be inserted in the HEAD part of the document,
  • the TITLE element does not belong to the text flow (it would be displayed as the title of the page or the window),
  • the TITLE element can contain accented or special characters,
  • the TITLE element must have an opening tag and a closing tag.

Here is an example of a well-formed TITLE tag,

<HEAD>
   <TITLE>mp3 player catalog</TITLE>
... other head items ...
</HEAD>
<BODY>
... body of the document ...
</BODY>
</HTML>

It is strongly recommended to fit to the standard because search engines prefer well-formed documents, i.e respecting the HTML standards.

In the common use, the TITLE element is often called the TITLE tag. To be clear, the TITLE element is composed of an opening tag (<TITLE>), a closing tag (</TITLE>) and some text, “mp3 player catalog” in our previous example.

Is the Title tag really important ?

This HTML tag is unique. There is only one copy per HTML page, usually at the beginning of the file. As this tag is not included in the text flow of the document body, it is barely visible. That is why we can wonder whether it is important for SEO and whether there are efforts to make on it.

This HTML tag is probably the most important of all. It has a great impact on search engines. If you were to optimize only one, it would be this tag. It is highly recommended to work on this tag to improve your SEO. A well-targeted title is often a large part of theme and ranking job done.

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