Number One On-Page SEO factor

First off, a big shout out to Darlene Martin with Bijoux Bead for helping me improve the format of my free SEO quote that I return after analyzing a site.

So with all the buzz surrounding Search Engine Optimization (SEO), how do you know where to start? Well, as with most things, approach a large daunting task the same way that you approach eating an elephant - One bite at a time! Now, there are many different techniques, strategies, tactics, methods and approaches to SEO, so where do I start? With the title. You see, the page title gives visitors the same “impression” that a book title gives you. It’s not meant to tell the whole story - that’s what the book is for.

OK. So how does a search engine view the title? The same way as librarian. You see, a librarian is more than just a person that you ask “where’s the reference section?” - they are also the ones that are in charge of viewing the library as a collection, and knowing when something is old - as in an antique , or old - as in just plain outdated, or knowing when something needs to be added to the collection, and above all, where to get the book. So how does a librarian know how to categorize a book? Well, she’ll start with the title.

Think about this for a moment. If you have your business name as the title, where does that fit? What does she know about your business name, in relation to putting the book on the shelf? Now image that your business is “ServPro Of Grand Junction” what does it tell you about what services they provide? Wouldn’t “Cleanup and restoration services for fire, water and mold in Grand Junction” be more descriptive? A heck of a lot better right?

So now we’ve gotten you to see and believe that a business name is a lousy page title, so what makes a great page title? Well, for starters, don’t make it too long. Somewhere around 50-75 characters has worked well for me. Then you need to consider what keywords your page is targeting. This of course assumes that you’ve done some keyword research. If you haven’t, don’t fret, just make a best guess on what you think your top 3 keywords are that people would search to find you. So when you put your title together, put together as many 3, 4 & 5 word combination’s that you can think of that are relevant to your page, using targeted keywords where you can ( but don’t overdo it, unless it makes human sense). These phrases can be an item description, a category description, a description of services you provide, or any descriptive phrase about your business that makes sense.

Make sure that you are making these reviews based on this particular page that you are working on, not your entire site. So yes, this means that you need a fresh and unique page title per web page. Now that you have a few phrases put together, put 2 or 3 of them together, separated by a ‘ | ‘ or a ‘ - ‘ . Don’t make this a keyword list either. The phrases need to make sense to your visitors. Why is this so important? Because your page title is what is used as the main heading in search engine results. So this title must make sense to them for the terms that they are shopping for.

So what are some examples?

Try the popular Google search for ‘wedding favors’. Do you see the title for ‘My Wedding Favors - Unique Wedding Favors - Bridal Shower Favors’. If you look on this results page, you’ll see that they’re all fairly similar. Short descriptive phrases.

Try a Google search on ‘Dude Ranch’ and you get the results of ‘The Dude Ranchers’ Association: Over 100 of the best Dude Ranch …’ — pretty descriptive of what they are and do.

So what would a bad example look like? Well, I took the Google search for ‘Dude Ranch’ and went to page 10 or so, and found this ‘TriangleX Ranch - Moose, Wyoming’ Is it really a dude ranch? It didn’t convince me, so I didn’t click on it to find out.

And out of this bad example, did you notice something? yep! 10 bonus points to you… bad titles go on later result pages, and good titles go on the first result pages… it’s a no brainer that you’re going to need a great title to make number one!

About the Author



Matthew Kettlewell is the President and CEO of Kettlewell Enterprises, Inc. In the past he has worked in technical roles with companies as diverse as Raytheon, on world-class satellite systems, but focuses now on using technology to get top rankings on search engines.

Go now to: http://www.kettlewell.net


Last 5 posts by Matthew Kettlewell


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Comments

Thanjks for presenting such clear post regarding SEO.
Look forward to learning More

Thank you for a fun and interesting article.

Great points. I’m learning something new every day that I can use when promoting my shop ‘SewDanish-Scandianvian Textile Art’ http://www.SewDanish.etsy.com
Thank you :-)

Thanks so much for this informative article.

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