How to Optimize Meta Tags in Proper way?
Today we’re going back to basics! And nothing is
more basically important to a site than properly written title tags.
You know the ones that used to appear in the little blue bars in your
browsers. Most modern browsers try to hide these, though that doesn’t
stop them being helpful!
So what is a title tag? Why is it important to
SEO, and how do you write the darn things?
Meta Tags
First let’s talk about meta
tags. Meta elements are HTML or XHTML elements used to
provide information about a web page for the search engines and
website users.
Such elements must be placed as tags in the head
section of a HTML document. These elements are the:
- Title Tag
- Description
- Keywords (No one uses these anymore and you can get spam “points” for overuse on Bing, so just forget them. If you have keyword stuffed “spammy” ones, you probably want to fix those.)
What is a Title Tag?
Title tags are part of the meta tags that appear
at the top of your HTML inside the < head> area. Think of title
tags like the title of the chapter of a book. It tells people and
search engines what your page is about.
Title tags are also part of what makes people
decide whether to visit your site when it shows up in the search
results. The title tag should contain important keywords to help the
search engine determine what the page is about.
Write title tags for humans; format them
for search engines.
NOTE: Every experienced SEO has their own
unique methods to doing this, so I’m going to give you best
practices along with some of my methods. However, there are a million
ways to write a title tag.
What Does the Title Tag Look Like?
The title tag looks like this in your HTML code:
<title>Important Words Go Here
</title>
Here is how title tags appear in a browser that
uses the bar to display title tags (other browsers might only use the
tab space or not show them at all):
REMEMBER: A title tag is THE
MOST IMPORTANT SINGLE TAG in your page. It tells the search
engines what your page is about. It is still vitally important to
your SEO strategy.
Quick Checklist
When you’re writing your title tag what do you
need to know? Here’s a quick checklist with some tips on how to
write optimized title
tags:
- Length: Title tags should be a maximum of 70 characters long, including spaces.
- Keyword Placement: Your most important words (keywords) need to be first in your title tag, with your least important words being last in the title tag (most to least). However, if you’re working in a language that reads right-to-left, then it is reversed, and it would be least important to most important.
- Keyword Separation: Use pipes | to separate important (keyword) phrases (no commas, underscores, dashes or any other punctuation unless the keyword is written that way).
- Wording: Keep your important phrases short and simple. Leave out words that would make it read like a sentence. (e.g., and, if, but, then, etc.)
- Company Name: If your company name is not part of the important (keyword) phrases, put it at the end of the title tag; if it is part of your important words, put it as the first words in the title tag. Some SEOs will tell you to leave it out. You can leave it in for branding purposes – so people will see the brand and click. This isn’t valid for all sites.
- DON’T DUPLICATE Title Tags: They must be written differently for every page. Don’t mass replicate your title tags.
- Make It Relevant: Title tags must be written to be descriptive of the content on the page. (e.g., the About Page would be:
About | Important Keywords | Company
Name
or
Important Keywords | About Us |
Company Name
Google & Title Tags
Sometimes Google doesn’t like your title tag. In
fact, sometimes Google thinks it can pick a better one, so it will
rewrite the tag for you. There are several places it might get this
information, most of them you won’t prefer to one you crafted
yourself.
While there isn’t any assurance your title tag
won’t be replaced, make sure you write a title tag that is page
related, content descriptive, short and sweet, and not keyword
stuffed. This is your one defense.
Keyword Stuffed Title Tags
You’ve probably come across badly written title
tags that try to rank for everything or repeat a word over and over.
Keyword stuffing is the worst offense when it comes to title tags.
Say your site is trying to rank for Blue Bells and
Yellow Bells. Many times you will see the main keyword repeated
multiple times across the title tag. It might appear like this:
Blue Bells, Yellow Bells, All
Types of Bells | Bells Bells and More | Doors.com
This is bad title tag writing. You don’t need to
repeatedly write the keyword. Google especially can pick up the
keywords like your eyes can read them, so you would best to rewrite
this as
Blue & Yellow Bells |
Doorbells | Doors.com
We removed the extra words, combined the products
(if possible you would split these products to separate pages, a blue
and a yellow, but this isn’t always feasible or desirable) and
added a category keyword which would appear in the middle of the
title tag on all doorbell related page titles, then end it
with the domain name (again this is for branding purposes – there
are also good reasons to not do this, it depends on the SEO).
Now our title tag is short, sweet, simple, and to
the point. We have also categorized it and added in branding for good
measure.
We also took out the word “and” and replaced
it with an ampersand (&) so that you don’t accidentally relate
the two items and make Google think you want people who are looking
for Blue AND Yellow Bells.
And there you go, a basic lesson in title tag
writing. This can be the most challenging and fun part of any SEO’s
work! Or should that be “Inbound
Marketer’s” work?
Some Title Tag Writing Examples
Let’s look at a few examples of writing title
tags with actual examples.
If your important words (keywords) were “Charlie
Sheen” and “Winning” your title tag would be
written in that order:
Charlie Sheen Winning
Charlie Sheen would be the first words in the tag.
Now what if we had more than one set of words?
What if my keywords were “Charlie Sheen Winning” and “Tiger’s
Blood”? Your title tag would still be written with “Charlie
Sheen Winning” as the first words in the tag. Then you would add a
pipe | and “Tiger’s Blood” as the second phrase:
Charlie Sheen Winning |
Tiger’s Blood
Don’t use hyphens, underscores, commas or
any other type of character – just pipes.
Now what if we had more than one set of words
and a company name we were not worried
about optimizing for (the company name was not part of the reputation
issue). If my words were “Charlie Sheen Winning” and “Tiger’s
Blood” and “CBS”, you would separate these three
phrases with pipes, with CBS last and farthest from the beginning,
which Google sees as the least important phrase:
Charlie Sheen Winning |
Tiger’s Blood | CBS
The company name can be repeated in every title
tag as long as it as not part of the important words and
appears at the far right end of the title tag.
What about sentences? Couldn’t you just write a
sentence such as “Charlie Sheen Says Winning And Tiger’s
Blood And Gets CBS Riled Up”? You could, but those extra words like
“says”, “and”, and “riled”, dilute your important words
and make them less important to content, so best to keep it short,
simple, and clear. Leave out the extra words.
Title Tag Writing Pop Quiz!
When using strict SEO principles. Which are the
BEST title tags for the important (keywords): (pick
2) “Charlie Sheen” “Winning” “Howard Stern Show” when
optimizing (trying to rank for) the words “Charlie Sheen
(1) Winning (2)”
- Charlie Sheen Winning on the Howard Stern Show
- Howard Stern Show & Charlie Sheen | Winning
- Charlie Sheen is Winning Points on the Howard Stern Show
- Charlie Sheen | Winning | Howard Stern Show
- Charlie Sheen and Howard Stern Winning the Show
- Winning | Charlie Sheen on the Howard Stern Show
- Charlie Sheen Winning | Howard Stern Show
- Doesn’t matter as long as the words are all there
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