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Fix Those Darn Title Tags
And increase your ranking
By Kerry Plowright
 

I recently reviewed a number of our merchant’s websites and was surprised by the poor wording of title tags and in some instances the complete absence of a title tag - the ultimate sin! The majority of engines place considerable relevance on the HTML title tag, making it generally the most important tag on your page.
The title tag also appears in the search results for most of the major engines, making the tags even more important. Having made the point on why you want a title tag, I now want to show you how you can improve traffic by creating REALLY GOOD title tags. To explain how it works let's look at a sample search result for "low cost airfares" in one of the major engines:
 

Now, which of the above examples would you look at? One has misspelled words damaging the credibility of the site. The second isn't even using a title tag, which is why it's listed as "untitled" and the third example is all capitalised making it hard to read.

Other results offered were:

1   2   3

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The point is, if you were reading down a list of titles such as the six detailed above, which ones would you read? If your title is more effective than sites that are actually above you in the ranking, you may get the traffic anyway, simply due to the effectiveness of your title tag. By the way, did you also notice how the second search results had a nice description under the title link? Most popular search engines show your "Description" tag underneath your page title. If you don't have a description tag, the search engine will show some of the text from your web page, which can be confusing. Having a description tag can help customers decide which web site to visit.

Creating Great Title Tags

Let's look at some tips for creating title tags that work, and then some mistakes that will cause your site to be passed over in the search results.

• Make sure to include your most important keyword or phrase at the beginning of the title. This is what the spiders will look at when they visit your site.

• Create some sense of urgency

• Offer something free (just an idea)

• Use powerful language that is compelling and exciting

• Ask a question

• Include a title tag on every page of your website

Remember that titles are being read by human beings as a result of searching a search engine. Make sure your titles read well, do not use endless strings of key words or ‘AAA’ methodologies. If the title tag is boring, unprofessional or does not make sense, guess what? They will not visit you. Create your title tags in such a way that they will serve as an online marketing campaign for your site. Remember that a well-written and effective title can make up for a lower search engine ranking.

About the Author: Kerry Plowright founded ezimerchant in 1996 and was the first to offer an affordable, packaged ecommerce solution to small and medium business. Since then Kerry has helped thousands of business make hundreds of millions of dollars on the internet and is arguably Australia’s leading authority on small business and the internet. Kerry recently sold the ezimerchant business which is now the most widely used solution in Australia in addition to being sold in Japan, the USA and UK. Kerry now offers his expertise to selected businesses desiring to establish or improve their online presence.