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Title Tags For Search Engines

Are You Losing Visibility by Duplicating Titles?

Originally Published: July, 2002

I can't stress enough the importance of title tags to the ranking of your Web pages. Few other elements on your page will influence your rankings like the title tag. Therefore, I'd like to provide a couple of tips regarding titles that I did not mention in last month's article.

Title Tag Tip #1:

Avoid Duplications. Sometimes taking simple steps can make a noticeable difference in the visibility of your Web site. For example, one common mistake is to get in a hurry in building your site. You work hard to create that initial layout for your home page. You're excited to get the site built, so you start copying your new layout to all the other pages of your site that you have planned. You create product information pages, a contact page, order pages, and so forth.

However, did you remember to go back and double-check each new page to make sure you did not forget to change the title tag? It's easy to focus on writing the unique content for the rest of the page and forget to change the title tag from what it said on your previous page.

Furthermore, did you make each meta keyword and description tag unique? Although duplicating titles and meta tags across multiple pages on your site will not get you in trouble for spamming, it does reduce your potential visibility. Most likely there are dozens of potential keywords and phrases that people might search on to find you. You should use as many of them as you can. A good way to start is to double check that your page titles and meta tags are unique and have been properly optimized for each page.

Title Tag Tip #2:

Regionalize Your Title. If your business primarily seeks local or regional business, include your city, state, or region in your title. Even if you offer services to anyone in the world, such as Web Site Design services, you'd be wise to still regionalize one or more of your page titles. Include the name of your city, state or province, and country in the title.

Many people prefer to do business with someone in their hometown. Therefore, they may search for something like "San Diego Web site design service" rather than just "Web site design service." If the only place you mention that you're based in San Diego is on your contact page, then a search engine is not likely to match that up with the major keywords that appear on the other pages of your site.

Despite a desire by search engines to look for "themes" in a Web site, rankings are still assigned primarily based on the content and incoming links for each individual page.

Editor's Note: Use Word Tracker to find profitable keywords for your titles. Click here for your FREE top 500 keyword report
Also See: Increase your Click-Throughs With Killer Title Tags and How To Get More Sales With Great Web Page Titles

This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition.
FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those rankings.

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July 24 2008 03:28 UTC