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What is a title tag and how vital are titles for search engines? How do you use title tags when building web pages?
- By Big JAC
- Published 21/11/2007
- Search Engine Optimisation
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Rating:
The Title Tag is so important to the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Just changing these or adding them to your web pages can mean a huge jump in search engine rankings for your site, which obviously leads to more visitors.
Proper use of the title tag is just one of a few very powerful but equally simple seo techniques you can employ on your site.
Not having title tags on your web pages is a bit like going to your local library and finding every book piled up in the middle of the floor. Worse still, not one of those books has any indication on the cover regarding it's contents - Chances of finding the book you want, s-l-i-m.
So first of all you'll need a 'whole site' title to go on your home page. It's like the section titles in the library. You know what I mean, things like; fiction, non-fiction etc.
Then you need to think about category titles, in the library these would be romance, business, childrens etc. Hopefully you're getting the picture now...
Finally, you'll need titles for each article or web page you're writing content for. These would be like the titles of each book.
If you do this religiously throughout your website, you'll be setting your pages up for maximum advantage when the spiders come searching from the like
s of Google, Yahoo and MSN. Make your titles enticing and you've got a double whammy as more people will click the links to your site.
<title>Your title here</title>
...and you're ready to go. If you're a JACpro user you don't have to worry. just add a title to your article or blog and it automatically adds the tags to your site for you.
If you look to the top of your browser, you'll see the title of this page at the very top, so it's also great for 'humans'.
Proper use of the title tag is just one of a few very powerful but equally simple seo techniques you can employ on your site.
Not having title tags on your web pages is a bit like going to your local library and finding every book piled up in the middle of the floor. Worse still, not one of those books has any indication on the cover regarding it's contents - Chances of finding the book you want, s-l-i-m.
So first of all you'll need a 'whole site' title to go on your home page. It's like the section titles in the library. You know what I mean, things like; fiction, non-fiction etc.
Then you need to think about category titles, in the library these would be romance, business, childrens etc. Hopefully you're getting the picture now...
Finally, you'll need titles for each article or web page you're writing content for. These would be like the titles of each book.
If you do this religiously throughout your website, you'll be setting your pages up for maximum advantage when the spiders come searching from the like
How to add a Title Tag to web pages
To set up a title tag just open up your web editor and in the <head> section of the HTML add:<title>Your title here</title>
...and you're ready to go. If you're a JACpro user you don't have to worry. just add a title to your article or blog and it automatically adds the tags to your site for you.
If you look to the top of your browser, you'll see the title of this page at the very top, so it's also great for 'humans'.
Just a few more things to consider when adding a title tag:
- The titles you give your pages are used at the search engines as the first line of your listing, so make sure they contain keywords and phrases about your page.
- Make them interesting - It's no good having a top page ranking in the search engines if your title is so boring no one clicks through.
- Keep them to 64 characters - Take a look at Google and count the characters on any title including the spaces and you'll realise they cut the title off after this. If you can't keep your title to 64 characters, make sure the first 64 are the most interesting and make the most sense.
Spread The Word
2 Responses to "What is a title tag and how vital are titles for search engines? How do you use title tags when building web pages?" 
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said this on 28 Nov 2007 6:28:27 AM CDT
My site just says home at the top, is this the title?
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Author)|
said this on 28 Nov 2007 6:54:34 AM CDT
hi Josh, thanks for the rating. I'll do my best to answer this really briefly here as you didn't leave your email in your comment. I'm afraid this is really common and really easy to sort out. Work out what your site is about overall and use this as the title for your home page, then do as above on the rest of the site. I also find the company name is often the title. This is OK but best used at the end of the title tag as the words nearer the start hold more importance for the engines.
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