To illuminate our understanding of Meta tags and Title tags and their place in SEO, we will cover a few basic pieces of information. Using the terminology of snippets, Meta Tags are text in the form of little extracts of HTML code that enlightens the search program concerning the contents of your web page.
These little extracts are not visible to the human reader but is part of your web page as it is implanted in the HTML code. They are usually located at the beginning of the page and can also be called Metadata. It is because the search platform will see this data description about the data context of your web page. Meta tags do not help in ranking, only in subject search resolutions.
Clarify a Title Tag
So now let’s get to what is a title tag and how is it used. The Title tag is seen by humans when they do a quest for your website. It is the designation of your document and appears just directly above the URL. This part of the HTML code is visible as a descriptive explanation of your online page. This makes the title tag is exceptionally key for SEO and search standings.
Every page of your website should have an eloquent title tag that defines that page. So to be clear, this is dissimilar to the Meta tag. The Meta Tag that is seen only in the HTML coding, the Title Tag is part of the HTML coding that is seen in logical search application description to the human user. Using specific keyword in the title tag is paramount to SEO. However, you should refrain from overuse. It should flow as a logical sentence describing that web page.
We have all seen this when we do a search for something. What shows up on the search engine results page (SERPS) are the title tags describing the URL below it! This gives the user a clear statement or phrase about that particular website.
Where do I add the Title tag?
You will be adding your title tag in the HTML very beginning section of your page. It is not hard to accomplish and can have a dramatic bearing on your SEO rankings. The code would look like this:
<head>
<title>Keyword Title</title>
</head>
You can also apply the content management system of your website and simply fill in the boxes. WordPress has this easily laid out for you. The layout would look something like this:
If you take the time to learn this, you will find that this is not a difficult task for optimizing your website for advanced SEO.
Why are title tags significant?
Basically there are two main reasons that title tags are significant regarding SEO rankings. The first is for the search applications and the way they are programmed. When indexing, these programs search for the keywords and key phrases in the title tags that define a website page.
If the title tags are not equivalent to or matching the content of your online page, then you will have a problematic issue with the SEO standings. So have due diligence that the title tags are a proper counterpart of your online page.
The second reason is that this is the first line that catches the eye of a human being who is your prospective customer or visitor to your online presence. You want to catch their attention, and a record number of people will quickly read this title tag.
It is like an extremely brief synopsis that people will see before they even go to your online presence. It is in visible sight on the SERP as a result of keyword searches. Consequently, you will need to learn how to compose a good SEO title tag and with properly placed keyword in title tag.
These are the two main reasons that title pages are extremely significant and important.
How to write title tags for search engine optimization?
So now that you understand what a title tag is, where to place it and comprehend the paramount importance of SEO title tags you will need to learn how to compose great title tags for you to be found in searches. In short, you need to pen awesome title tags.
Principally what you need to know is that the title tag format is to be as follows:
Your prime keyword – your ancillary keyword | your brand name
So make sure that your keywords or key phrases coincide with the content of your online page. You will not want to overcrowd it with keywords as that could lower your rankings as a spammer. The foremost basis of your title tag writing is that you should keep in mind that you are writing for humans.
So ask yourself if you would respond to the title page if you were the one performing the searching. Does it catch your eye or is it just dullsville? Learning how to write title tags for search engine optimization may take you a while. You may have to test it.
Consider the following analogy. The professional people who are commissioned sales have learned of the phrase “Elevator Speech”. This is the 30-second commercial that they have memorized about what it is that they do for a living or for the products they represent.
So if they sell life insurance, they may say something to the effect that they “leverage minimal investments for maximum protection of loved ones?” In their elevator speech, they will talk about insurance as a leverage tool. Your title tag is your brief elevator speech.
When we say brief, we mean brief because search engines such as Google will only display about the first 60 to 70 characters, spaces counted in. This is the title tag length. So it is imperative to get your message out with as few words as possible fitting in this title tag length.
How to make a good title?
In our effort to help you optimize your online presence for SEO using title tags, we have included a short checklist. You may find more items as you get better at this, but we do not desire you to miss anything.
- Think like you would when you search: Remember that the target audience will read just like you would when you search. You should keep it flowing properly to catch the attention as if you were the person doing the searching.
- KISS the title tags: This stands for Keep it Simple and Short. Remember the elevator speech. This is where you need to pique interest, but at the same time not complicated.
- Use expressive words: Use words around your keywords that gravitate towards interest and curiosity.
- Title Tag Size: Because Google and similar search applications display only the first 60 to 70 characters, then why make your title tags any longer? Title tags are 50-60 characters including spaces for optimal SEO.
- Where to place your keyword: As we stated above, you will place your principal keyword first followed by your ancillary keyword. Title tags are intended to have keywords.
- More is not better: Keyword title tag padding are poorly composed title tags that try to capture it all. You only have about 60 characters. Do not try to rank for everything under the sun by repeating keyword over and over. Keyword padding is a nasty offense in title tag SEO that your online presence will be punished for with poorer SEO.
- Company Name: Unless you are a well-known company then your brand will not be part of most keyword searches. Consequently, you put your company name at the conclusion of the title tag.
- Duplicate title tags are “Verboten”: That is German meaning forbidden. Do not get lazy here. You will need to compose a title tag for each particular page that has unique keywords for that page. If you simply copy and paste your title page for each page, in effect the same title tag you will create negative search results.
- Page relevancy: In view of what we just stated title tags need to truthfully describe the overall information on the page that they are tagging.
- You should have a different headline (<h1> tag) from the title tag: You can vary the keyword or keyword phrases here by having your headline tag keyword be dissimilar from the title tag keywords or phrases. This will maximize the usage of keywords for SEO.
These were just some of the items in our checklist of how to make a good title. We are confident that if you implemented some of these recommendations in learning how to compose title tags for SEO it will be a successful endeavor. You also may discover other good ideas and add them to your checklist for awesome title tags.
Title Tags - The good, bad and mediocre!
So now we wanted to provide you some examples of what we would consider good, bad and even mediocre title tags. One of the preeminent ways to do this is to select a niche, or maybe even your own niche or industry and do a keyword search to see what comes up on pages 1 and 2. Maybe the reason some website came up on page 2 is nothing short of a poorly written title page. Let’s find out using “best health Spas”
For the record, I used the TOR browser to keep my search anonymous and not tie it to my IP location in order to get an improved global sampling. The top five on the first page were as follows:
We give this one a mediocre for the reason that it did rank number one on the page, however, the Headline and Title tags are similar and the balance is somewhat boring...
We give this one a good to the awesome rating. Although the headline is also in the title tag, it is further down the sentence. The word “indulge” caught our attention.
This is a good one, for the reason that the words “stunning, Health and Wellness and Luxury” definitely caught our fervor.
We think this is bad because it is just a repeat of the headline and title tags. There are no words that jump out at me grabbing my attention
We will give this a bad but not as bad as the one above. Mainly because the phrase “your skin and your health will thank you for it”. It sparked only a passing curiosity. In addition, why waste characters with …?
We trust that this article on Meta and Title tags has been useful and beneficial to your website SEO.