How to write Title tag? - Part I

By Shruti Gupta

October 20, 2005

Title tag is the HTML title tag () added in the head section of the HTML code as seen in the screenshot below.</p> <p></p> <img src="/Bg/title_img2.gif" alt=""/> <p></p> <p>Title tag is the HTML title tag (<title>) added in the head section of the HTML code as seen in the screenshot below.</p> <p></p> <img src="/Bg/title_img.gif" alt=""/> <p></p> <p>From SEO perspective, this title tag is significant. The words inside this tag are the first words read by search engines. These words inform the search engine about the content of the web page and hence affect the ranking of the web page on search engines. Its like the title of a research paper. Usually search engines use the content of the title tag to display title of the search listings as seen in the screenshot below:</p> <p></p> <img src="/Bg/title_img1.gif" alt=""/> <p></p> <p>This title and the description below it (read "How to write Meta tags?" article explaining description) tells the Internet surfer whether the website can provide the information, product or services that he/she is looking for or not. It is safe to assume that majority of the Internet surfers will be tempted to either click or ignore based on the content of this title and description. THIS IS YOUR AD in the natural search section of the search engine.</p> <h2>Now that the impact of the title tag is obvious, let me explain how to write an effective and powerful title tag.</h2> <p>First the basics! In general, Internet browsers such as Internet Explorer show at the most about 95 characters (including space) of the title in the title bar of the Internet Explorer. Moreover, Google shows only about 66 characters (including space) of the title in the search listings. Hence, the goal should be to write an effective and powerful title within 66 characters.</p> <p>The other thing to consider is that as explained above, the title tag is the synopsis of the content of the web page. So, as no two pages on your website are same, hence why should their title tags be? Therefore, as a general rule, title tag for each page on your website should be unique. This is a boon from SEO perspective. This is because now you can target many more keywords and hence spread your reach (read our article on "<a href="/Articles/seo_keyword_target.shtml">How Many Keywords Should You Target?</a>")</p> <p>Next thing to consider is whether you want to add your company name in the title tag? The answer is that it depends on your branding strategy. If your company name is a known brand, if you want to promote your company name as a brand or if your company name consists of keyword(s) your want to target (such as <strong>ECommerce</strong> Partners targeting keyword "<strong>ECommerce</strong>"), then by all means please add your company name in the title tag. If not, then lets use the limited but valuable space to add your targeted keywords. If you do decide to add your company name, make sure that it is at the end of the title. This is because you want search engines and your visitors to first read the targeted keyword(s) for that page and then the company name. </p> <p>Again, as the title tag is the synopsis of the content of the web page, we need to make sure that the title tag is relevant. For example, the title tag for our <a href="/Company/">about us</a> page is "About Website Design Company - ECommerce Partners". Hence, the title tag does its job of informing what the page is about. Now, you might have noticed that instead of "<strong>About Us</strong> - ECommerce Partners", I added "<strong>About Website Design Company</strong> - ECommerce Partners".</p> <p>The reason is because "Website Design Company" is one of the key phrases we want to target and so, I replaced "About Us" with "About Website Design Company". This brings out an important point. We need to do a keyword analysis before we write an effective and powerful title tag (read our articles on <a href="/Articles/seo_keyword_analysis.shtml">How to Select Keywords</a>, <a href="/Articles/seo_keyword_target.shtml">How Many Keywords Should You Target?</a>, <a href="/Articles/seo_keyword_competition.shtml">How to Determine Keyword Competition</a> for more information). Keyword analysis and writing effective and powerful title tag is a part of <a href="/Services/Internet-Marketing/Search-Engine-Optimization-SEO.shtml">Search Engine Optimization service</a> we provide to our clients.</p> <p>The next step after keyword analysis will be to write down title tag for each and every web page on your website. Here, I would like to caution that with the understanding of the power of title tags we should by no means stuff keywords in the title. Doing so will undermine the power of title tag and defeat the purpose of better ranking in search engine. Title tag is the title of your web page and so has to be relevant and meaningful. 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