What makes you read an article at once? What is that driving force that makes you feel that an article might be interesting? The answer to these questions is the title of an article. The title of a page is the most important constituent of an article which tells the search engine about the content of your page.
In order to increase the traffic on your page, that is to increase the number of visitors on your page, you need to have an effective title tagline for SEO and you also need to have an interesting title for the readers.
For example, if you Google “how to write a resume” the first and the top most search result will be the exact match of your search. The title for this article was molded in such a way that it appears at the top in the search list. However when you go through the search results, you find 2nd and 3rd article titleds “How To Write A Resume, Resume Writing, Sample Resume” and “How to Make a Resume (with Free Sample Resumes)” respectively. Although the top result was taken by the exact match of our search, but this article even more click worthy since it includes words like “Free Sample Resumes“.
Screenshot – april 10, 2013 (Google.com)
Note : By seeing the above picture you may argue that the first article has more chances of attracting the visitors because there is Google plus author profile linked to it, despite being simple compared with 2nd and 3rd search result. But my point here is only to compare the titles and see how effective is 2nd and 3rd results without considering the Google profile pic.
In the above example you can see the 2nd result – “How To Write A Resume, Resume Writing, Sample …. ” and if you want to see the complete title, just open the site in any browser and keep the cursor over the tab and you can see the see the complete title like the picture below:
The above mentioned example surely suggests on how you need to design your title, which not only appears among the top search results but also has an eye catching and interesting title to force the visitors to click on it.
Before jumping onto any conclusion regarding the process of making a title interesting and make it appear at the top of the search list, it is necessary to know a few details.
Meta Tags
These are XHTML elements that are used to deliver any information about the website’s page to the users of the website and search engines. These elements include
- Title tag lines
- Description
- Keywords
Know about title tags
These are the part of Meta tags, which are present around the top most part in the HTML covered under the <head> area. Similar to the titles of the chapters that you have in a book, these title tags tells the search engines and the readers about the content of your page. It is the title tag of your page which will make the persons searching on the search engines to make a decision whether they must look into your page or not.
Not only this, title tag must contain some of the keywords which will enable search engines to understand what your page is all about. The title tags must be designed in such a way that they should appear catchy for the human eyes and should also be formatted according to the needs of search engines.
You must always remember that it is the title tag is the most important tag which tells the search engine about the content of your page. It is also equally important for your SEO strategy.
Write a Reader Friendly Title
In the previous example we have already seen that the search result that came on top of the result was left behind by the one which was amongst the tops and also had an effective and interesting title added to its page. The title “10 east steps to make a cake” when referred to one’s website, does not sound as ambiguous as it appears to be in a search result.
Whenever you are writing a title tag for your page, there are bound to be several questions in your mind. Here, we try to answer the most important ones.
- What are the norms about the length of the title tag?
The length of the article must not exceed 70 characters. Secondly, you should invest adequate thought in the placement of keywords.
At this point, you could ask – what if you are writing a language that goes from right to left? Or, what if your target audience is from a country having these language norms? Well, in these cases, you have to reverse the order.
- How shall I go about the construction of the title tag in terms of placement of words?
The important and more descriptive of the keywords must come in the initial parts of the title tag, and the less important ones must be kept for the latter parts.
- What if I need to use similar important words?
In such cases, you may use pipes in order to distinct important phrases. You must also see to it that you do not have any commas, exclamation mark, underscores or other punctuations in your tag.
- Is using the name of my company in the title tag advisable?
Use the name of the company in the title tag only when the name forms a portion of your tag. Most of the SEO‘s advice to either leave them out or to place them at the last of you title tag.
