How To Create Rippin’ HTML Title Tags
September 5th, 2007 by CourtIf there’s one thing you want to get right with your site, it’s your HTML title tags. The HTML title tag is the #1 onpage optimization factor that can help or hurt your search engine rankings.
What Is An HTML Title Tag?
It’s the text that appears in the blue bar that goes across the top of your browser when you’re viewing a web page. If you view that code for your web page, you will see code like this in the ‘head’ section of the document:
<title>Your HTML Title Here</title>
If you’re working with a static website, you will add the HTML title in manually by editing the text in between the brackets. If you’re working with a blog, the HTML title is usually created using the title of each post for the post pages, and the title of the blog for the homepage.
Setting The HTML Title For Your Homepage
When you create the HTML title for your homepage, you want to put your top two or three keywords in there. I separate mine with bars like this: Strategic Internet Marketing | Make Money Online. You can also separate the keywords with dashes like this: Strategic Internet Marketing - Make Money Online. If you view the source code of my homepage, you will see this code near the top:
<title>Strategic Internet Marketing | Make Money Online</title>
Those of you that are working with a WordPress blog can use the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin to alter the HTML title of your home page.
Creating HTML Titles For Your Other Pages
For your other pages, I would recommend using the keywords you’re using for that page and the keywords you’re trying to target with your homepage. Since the keywords you target with your homepage are generally harder to get ranked for, this can give you an advantage over your competitors. Use the keywords you’re targeting for the page first, followed by the keywords you’re targeting with your homepage.
If you were targeting ’search engine optimization’ with a sub-page, and ‘internet marketing’ and ‘money’ with your homepage, I would use this title on the subpage:
<title>Search Engine Optimization | Internet Marketing | Money</title>
If you do this on all of your pages, it will give your site a lot more relevancy for your main keywords, and will certainly increase your search engine rankings for them. The
If you were targeting ’search engine optimization’ with a sub-page, and ‘internet marketing’ and ‘money’ with your homepage, I would use this title on the subpage:
<title>Search Engine Optimization | Internet Marketing | Money</title>
If you do this on all of your pages, it will give your site a lot more relevancy for your main keywords, and will certainly increase your search engine rankings for them. For the WordPressers, you can do this by setting the ‘Blog Title’ of your site to your main keywords in the ‘Options’ page of your admin. You will also want to install the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin because that will make your posts show up before the main keywords in the HTML title.
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September 5th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Thanks, this post has answered so many questions it’s ridiculous! Great post! Now I have a lot of work to do:)
September 5th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Great advice, having the right title tags definitely makes a big difference.
September 5th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I also try to include the plural and singular version of the keyword in the title if possible.
Google highlights the keyword twice and the page ranks higher for both variations:
Example: Tennis Tips (main keyword)
Title: Tennis Tips - A Tip For Every Tennis Stroke
September 5th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Good Tips Court! I just changed my Title tags the other day and when I saw this post I thought “Effin’ A Cotton!” Thanks so much for all your tips, you’ve helped me a lot! I want to guest write on here some time! Cheers, Ryan
September 6th, 2007 at 4:12 am
Great Post. As a web designer I tend to look at this kind of stuff when I go to peoples sites and this is perhaps one of the most underused way to get better search engine results. Like you said the key is to pick the right words for what your site is about.
September 6th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Another helpful post. I recently changed my home page’s title tags but I think I’m going to give them another look just in case. Also I found the section about HTML title tags for individual pages very something. That’s something else I should definitely start doing. Usually I just leave all my posts and pages alone, but not anymore!
September 7th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
On your advice I installed the all-in-one SEO pack plugin.
It made it easy to do everything you mentioned. Quite easy.
Please don’t advise me to poke a bear with a stick, or stick my foot into a ferris wheel spoke. I might just do it.
Thanks for being such a resource for the beginning blogger!
September 8th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I just launched a new blog using one of the themes you (Court) SEO’d (Misty) along with the All in One SEO plugin. I’m excited to see how it performs out of the gates!
September 10th, 2007 at 1:29 am
Magie Amour Noire Blanche
September 11th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
This is one thing I have not done that I really need to focus on. I have just had a hard time deciding what keywords I want to go for with my homepage. Once I figure that out this post is hugely beneficial to me.
October 14th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
[…] Court wrote an interesting post today on How To Create Rippin’ HTML Title TagsHere’s a quick excerptI separate mine with bars like this: Strategic Internet Marketing | Make Money Online. You can also separate the keywords with dashes like this: Strategic Internet Marketing - Make Money Online. If you view the source code of my … […]
January 6th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
As always, very useful information that i’m going to implement straight away.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
[…] on when you are searching in Google, I know that I don’t always click the first results. Using great titles and topics on your site will bring you more traffic than a number one listing. Most of the time it is within the first page, but I skim through the […]
January 31st, 2008 at 8:05 am
[…] click on when you are searching in Google, I know that I don’t always click the first results. Using great titles and topics on your site will bring you more traffic than a number one listing. Most of the time it is within the first page, but I skim through the […]
February 21st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
[…] A nice article to read about title tags is Courtney’s post: How to Create Rippin’ HTML Title Tags […]
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