Content Writers Professional SEO Consultants | SEO News Tricks SEO Campaign Management
This SEO update is brought to you by SEO Specialist Online Professional SEO Consultant and Content Writers for all your SEO needs. For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit Here
To optimize page titles keep it short. Search engines will show no more than 60 or 70 characters (including spaces) when they list your page in the SERPs. If you get any longer than that, they’ll cut it off.
- BUT What about Article Titles?
You can follow the same guidelines for your article titles. Or if you choose you can spice things up a little bit. Michael Gray wrote a very nice article on optimizing Wordpress page titles that talks about creating a page title and a post title at the same time, and explains why you might want to make the two different. He focuses strongly on keywords. Indeed, one of the reasons that you might want to make your article/post title different from your page title is that you can optimize for different keywords.
But there are other reasons you might want to make your article title different. In another article, Gray talks about Title Bait. He also includes several examples. I believe he intended them to work as both page titles and article titles. He wants searchers to see the title and feel almost compelled to click through to the article. Depending on the approach you take to page titles, however, you might prefer to limit these techniques to your article titles.
You can play on titillation to spice up an otherwise-bland topic. For example, when Gray wanted to point out that one prominent blogger was just two clicks away from adult content, what title did he use? Six Degrees of a Lesbian Porn Scraper. You have to admit, that gets attention.
You can also be controversial or, if it’s relevant, clearly show your readers that they’re about to encounter an entertaining rant. That’s the approach Gray took when he titled one article Yahoo: Yeah We Suck and We Don’t Give a Damn!
And you can always play the list card. Had I structured this article a little differently, I could have called it something like Ways to Optimize Your Page Titles.Somehow, we just can’t resist something that offers to sum up a complicated subject with just a few tips. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a few steps. And it doesn’t have to be a website either; there are books based on this idea. I was delighted to see, for example, that Amazon is currently selling a book titled The 100 Greatest Inventions of All Time. Why not take advantage of a marketing approach that’s as old as Moses?
For something a little more up-to-date, you can always mix some pop culture references into your title. Famous quotes or concepts work as well. How about The Silly String Theory of the Universe for an article on more technical uses for the toy (our military uses it to detect tripwires)? I admit I’m a little rusty at this; you can probably come up with much better ideas. Of course, you’ll have to rise to the challenge of being professional, informative, and humorous all at the same time, as Gray himself notes – but it can be done. Good luck!
This SEO update is brought to you by SEO Specialist Online Professional SEO Consultant and Content Writers for all your SEO needs.For a Free Web Site Evaluation Visit Here
Great Page Titles, Short and Sweet
Michael Nguyen, writing for Social Patterns, lists eleven rules for writing page titles. Aaron Wall also lists eleven, but they’re a slightly different set. Matt McGee, writing for Gooruze, lists six. Still, there are certain things that all three of them agree upon. Here they are, in no particular order.
First, keep it short. Search engines will show no more than 60 or 70 characters (including spaces) when they list your page in the SERPs. If you get any longer than that, they’ll cut it off.
Second, be accurate, relevant, and descriptive. Give both the search bot and the human searcher a good idea of what to expect of your page’s content. If possible, front-load your most important keyword, and avoid keyword stuffing.
Third, have a unique title for every page on your site. If you don’t, the search engines might think you’re displaying duplicate content, and that brings its own headaches. Your human visitors will also have a hard time telling the difference between your pages.
Fourth, write in plain English (or whatever language you’re using for your site’s content). Yes, it’s hard not to want to get fancy. As Graywolf pointed out in his SEO blog recently, “Spring Sunglass Trends in New York City” is simply not as entertaining a title as “Specs in the City.” And in that case, the title might work. But it’s too easy to get so clever that the meaning slips past your target audience. Remember, searchers aren’t reading page titles so much as skimming them, so you need to write a title that makes it clear from the get-go what the page is all about.
Fifth, don’t stuff your title with keywords. One at the beginning is fine. Likewise, don’t add unneeded words to your title. You might be surprised by how much you can cut. Nguyen used the following example: “Click here to go to my page” could be cut to simply “my page.”
Sixth, here’s a direct quote from Aaron Wall to give you a good idea of what a page title should do: Good titles evoke an emotional response, ask a question, or promise something (that the landing page fulfills). Next time, What about Article Titles?
