Titles to Titillate Humans and Search Engines: Crafting Page Titles for Great SEO Results

The role the title plays in SEO is an important one. Keywords that appear inside a page's title tag are heavily weighted, having a much greater impact on your search engine results page ranking than keywords which appear in ordinary text. This makes it vitally important to devote a few minutes' extra thought to your titles when you set up a new page. When you craft your titles with care, you'll have a definite leg up on the competition; consider the example here - for a leading Aberdeen SEO Consultant

Length is, of course, something to consider carefully when you title a new page. There is only so much room on the search engine results page, and you want to present an informative and enticing title to potential visitors. On the other hand, automated search engine indexers will pick up keywords even if they're buried at the end of a long title. Take this article's title as an example: the keyword "SEO" appears towards the end, where it might be cut off on the results page. The portion before the colon, though, is sure to appear and, hopefully, entice visitors.

If you put together a longer title, you'll be tempted to pack plenty of keywords into it. Exercise some restraint here. Repetition is not necessarily a good thing, as a ratio of too many keywords to too little other text may raise flags with search engines. You also want to avoid splitting your SEO attention among too many keywords on a single page. As a general guideline, restrict your titles to no more than two keywords each, and never use a keyword more than twice in a single title.

When you consider your website as a whole, it's very important to maintain variety in your titles. Don't use the same title for multiple pages! Taken to the extreme, this can also set off warning bells. More importantly, though, repeated titles represent wasted opportunities. By using unique titles, you have a chance to address many different keywords and approach them from many different angles. If you do find pages that share identical titles, make a note of it and spend a little time thinking up a fresh one.

You shouldn't let SEO be your only concern when you craft your titles. You must strike a balance between writing for the search engines and writing for real people. Although pushing a page high up on the results page is a great accomplishment, it won't have much of an impact if nobody is interested in clicking on the link. Think of SEO as just one facet of your overall marketing task. Make sure that your titles are not only well-optimized but also well-crafted.

The best titles for attracting human attention on the results page are those that stand out. Unusual words, unique phrasing, and a strong, personal voice are all assets you want to use in your titles. Think of your title as the opening line you'd use when you want to tell someone a great story. Also, remember that a summary of your page will appear beneath its link, drawn from the meta tag. Make sure this writing works with your title, giving the potential visitor a little more information while further enticing him or her to click on your link.

Putting a bit of extra effort into creating your page titles can really pay off. With practice, you'll be able to assemble inventive, interesting titles that are also well-optimized with ease. Once you master the art of pleasing both human visitors and the programs search engines use to rank your pages, you'll start to see a dramatic improvement in both page ranking and click-through rates.