Search Engine Optimization Guide to Title Tags

Your SEO Title Tag is a bit different from the title you choose for your web page or your articles. It is the title you choose for your web page that is viewed from the blue bar at the very top of your browser. You may not have even noticed it before!

Your choice for your SEO Title tag is an important one. Even though it may not have been something you’ve thought about before, the proper use of title tags help you rank higher in the search engines and help provide a short summary of your site to Google

What is an SEO Title Tag?

Not only does your Title Tag appear in the top of the browser when you’re on your web page, it also appears as a clickable link in search engine listings. Also, when you bookmark a site, the Title Tag serves as the name for the bookmark. Every tag or keyword we choose to represent our web pages has an impact on our search engine rankings and the quality of traffic we receive.

Creating Strong SEO Title Tags

The keywords you’ve chosen for your web page should be used in your Title Tag. Since the number of characters you can use in your SEO Title Tag is limited, you should place your keywords at the beginning of your Title Tag if possible.

If you are creating your own html code for your site, your code will look like this:

<title>SEO Guide to Title Tags for Proper Search Engine Optimization</title>.

Your text that you enter between the <title> code will become your SEO Title Tag.

You have 65 characters that can be included in your Title Tag, so you’ll want to be very concise to avoid cut-off words. Since you are so limited, you can see why every word you choose is pretty important. While searching Google, I’m sure you realize that you tend to click on Title Tags that read exactly what you’re looking for. Your visitors will be doing the same, and it’s the click that counts.

In order to create the best possible Title Tag, you can use hyphens “-“ and vertical bars “|” to help you separate your words accurately. You’ll find the vertical bar on top of the back slash on the right end of the keyboard. It will appear broken.

For a physical business, it may be a good move to include your location in your title tag, and the use of dashes and bars will be helpful to include your keywords so that it reads correctly.

“Dog Training-Dog Obedience-Tips |Training Classes | Mobile, AL” (65 characters)

If your web page is most likely to be clicked on by people doing research, make your Title Tag more descriptive and have it read smoothly. If your web page is geared more toward purchasing, then your Title Tag should include keywords that encourage the purchase; like “buy”, “view”, or “download”.

“Dog Training Tips for Old & New Pet Owners w/ Dog Food Reviews”

(62 characters, Descriptive)

“Dog Training Equipment, Dog Grooming | Training Tips – Free Shipping”

( 68 characters, the last 3 may be cut off, geared toward Purchasing)

 A search engine optimization guide for proper SEO Title Tags will have you include a different, concise Title Tag for each web page; using “Title case” punctuation. Make sure your Title Tag is extremely relevant for your site and summarizes your web page with your keywords; keeping under 66 characters. Your efforts will be reflected in your search engine rankings and the quality of your traffic.

For more Search Engine Optimization training, review other articles in this section.

What is a Meta Tag Description?

Following search engine optimization training requires understanding a lot of technical terms and techniques for getting search engines to find you, and list your web pages properly on the Internet. Understanding what a Meta Tag description is and implementing it can make a big difference in your web traffic.

What is a Meta Tag Description?

Let’s start with what a Meta Tag description does. It helps direct the search engines to list and index your web pages properly. Then you can be easily found for the keywords you’ve chosen and ultimately, “get the click”.

The Meta tags description is not seen by your visitors and is placed in html code on your web pages. If you are in charge of placing your own code, the description goes between the <head> and </head> portion of your web page. You can see an example of the Meta Tag in the picture here.

The Meta Tag is seen following “<Meta name = description”. You will type in your description following “content =”.

*Note: You can actually view the same information on most any web page by going to the top of your browser; clicking “View”, then clicking “Page Source” to see the html code for that site.

For Proper SEO, What Makes a Good Meta Tag Description?

One SEO secret is that the ideal Meta tag is about 150 characters, or about 25 words. You can actually include a longer description, but our goal is to be as concise and accurate as possible with our description so that Google uses what we included instead of picking up sentences off our web page. This is where our Meta Tags description is actually seen if Google chooses to include it: in the search engine listing for our web page.

In the example here, you’ll see why it’s so important to actually have a strong, compelling, and precise Meta Tag description. It is possible that search engines will use the description we’ve entered for our Meta Tag and display it in the search engine listing under the Title Tag.

If our Meta Tags description is not used, or is not there to begin with, the search engines will pull sentences from the web page to be used in the listing, and most likely, that is not an accurate description of our web page.

 When we make it easy for Google to use our Meta Tag, we want our description to include our keywords; be under 150 characters, and include a call to action, if possible. Whether our listing gets the click or not, depends on our use of these little SEO secrets. For more information on Title Tags, see my section on search engine optimization training.  With a strong Title Tag and Meta Tag description, our human visitors will see what we want them to see and click on our listing because the search engines have listed and indexed our web pages correctly.

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Have Your Internet Marketing Content Show Up at the Top!

Getting your Internet Marketing content to rank high on the search engines can be tricky if you don't know the rules, or the so-called science about how the SEO game is played.  In this article on Search Engine Optimization, learn tried and true tips on how to get your Internet marketing content to show up on top with good keywords and appropriate links.

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