The page title is entered into the meta tag of the code for your page. It deserves your full and thoughtful attention. Whether you have a new mini-site or a gradually developed, mature, professionally designed large website, you must determine each page’s title carefully determined for several very important reasons.
Search Engine Optimization: The title of a page is a major piece of data that contemporary search engines use to identify the content of any web page. In the beginning days of the Internet, search engines put a great deal of faith in the honesty of webmasters to use the keyword tags to accurately describe the content of any particular web page. However, as the keyword meta tag became abused by foolish web authors who were trying to “game” the system, the importance of the title tag of a page grew. Many businesses choose to spend money on this important topic by hiring professional keyword research consultants to help them choose page titles for their web pages.
Top of Browser I.D.: The word or words used in the title tag show up in the uppermost region of the browser window. Although some page visitors do not even notice the word or words at that location, other visitors rely upon that as a short-hand reference to quickly identify the topic of that particular page.
Lead In To Search Listings: At the top of any individual listing in a search engine query is the page title, taken directly from the title tag. That is what is hyperlinked to take anyone who clicks it to your page, which of course is your goal. It stands out because it is underline and a different color (blue) from the description.
Bookmark Text: Although the visitor always has the ability to change the text or even add tags in some browsers, the title tag supplies the default wording for any bookmark for a page that the user puts into her or his browser.
What follows are some recommendations that I hope will serve as a summary of considerations for choosing the titles of your various website pages.
1. Choose a title for your page that is simply your primary keyword or phrase If necessary, you can include two or three keywords or phrases within the title, but rank order those keywords and separate them by ” – ” or “
2. Make sure the title you choose will stand out to someone executing a search when your page appears in the results of a query.
3. Assure that the title is simultaneously as brief as possible and a truly accurate description so that it is useful to the visitor who sees it in the top of the browser window or in a list of bookmarks that have been saved to the computer.
4. Never assign the title “Home” to your home page (i.e. index.html or index.php, etc.). That adds no value to your SEO or your users’ experience unless, of course, the page happens to be about the concept of “home.” You can, of course, use that word as part of a slightly longer title, such as “Home of Best Widgets.”
5. You should occasionally experiment with changing your title tag to see if you achieve better search engine results, in the same way that you would carefully experiment with all of the major variables on your website.
Tags: search engine optimization, seo, web, website, website design