Ten Timely Tips for Terrific Title Tags

Google's most recent results page layout changes meant more than just a search experience update. With the change came adjustments to how each individual result is displayed, which may almost certainly necessitate a refresh for a core search engine optimization (SEO) element: the venerable title tag.

So first off, for both the old and new hat SEO folks, what is the title tag and why is it important?

As Google explains:

A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is. ... If your document appears in a search results page, the contents of the title tag will usually appear in the first line of the results ... This can help users recognize if the page is likely to be relevant to their search.

As Kristine Schachinger wrote on SEW:

Title tags are part of the meta tags that appear at the top of your HTML inside the < head> area. Think of title tags like the title of the chapter of a book. It tells people and search engines what your page is about. ... A title tag is THE MOST IMPORTANT SINGLE TAG in your page. It tells the search engines what your page is about. It is still vitally important to your SEO strategy.

Much may have changed in Google over the years, but the importance of the title tag can't be overstressed. It's used (most of the time) as the clickable text in a search result, it is the headline to your ad, the start of a (search) conversion funnel, and a facet of internal linking.

Your website's title tag says who you are, what you do, why anyone should bother to click, and why Google should care. It is your opening line when you first meet someone, or a welcoming greeting on your return. It is important. (Did I make that clear?)

Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts likes titles, too:

Tip 1: The Long

Much has been debated over the maximum length of a title tag. Review the mean recommendations of 10 different online resources and theaverage is around the 65-70 character mark.

However, this study proved that character count is a somewhat spurious measure, and that the sum of character's width should be the primary driver of optimal title SERP display.

Fast forward to Google's most recent redesign and you'll see less is apparently more, with the title displayed appearing to be 10-15 percent shorter.

Though some (or many) folk will disagree, I'm not as concerned with the maximum display limiter of the new display of the title tag enough to spout change for change's sake, so with the caveats I mention below (See Tip 3) don't worry too much about adapting title tag length to this latest update.

(Tip 1.5: Cutts also mentions in the video embedded above that Google may use all of a title tag to understand a page, so it's best to make sure you cover the main topic(s) in the title tag, even if it is a little long for SERP display.)

Tip 2: The Short

So if there's a maximum length, is there a minimum number of characters or character width? Although there's always discussion on title maximum, the minimum length of the title tag is a challenge of a couple of factors:

• Why waste the valuable real estate with a short title tag and opportunity to inspire a click?
• Google may decide to 'fill in the blanks' and add additional characters to the title tag from on-page content = you lose some control over what shows.

So from these two factors I'd recommend you follow the maximum characters / width for the minimum, ensuring you're meeting those criteria will make the shortness of titles a moot point!

FYI: This is probably too short of a title tag:

Tip 3: The Start

There's nothing worse than missing an opportunity. The key in the search results is to start out strong, lead with your best foot, and connect with the search query to inspire the click.

This doesn't mean you must start with your primary keyword for the specific page (or your homepage) titles, but consider doing some informal testing with a few friends or colleagues to see what mix inspires the click more than others.

A review of the SERP can also help from a standpoint of not following the herd (see "stand out" below), and differentiating the first 25 or so characters to really stand out from the crowd.

If everyone around you is calling out their brand first, then maybe you should be more conversational, such as:

More than 5,000 air filters in stock! Check out Fred's Auto online.

Remember... title tags are an art and a science. Write accordingly. Be creative!

Tip 4: The Big Bold Bit

It's not just bravado. Nothing draws the eye more than contrast.

Until Google adds additional color to the search results (I think it'll be with us in the next 12 months, probably starting as a 'color extension' for paid ads), it's a bold result that pulls us in as:

• Psychologically, we see it as more important.
• Subconsciously, our eyes are directed to differences. 
• Emotionally, we feel more confident in decisions that appear with signals of strength (our search queries are – roughly – matched in the bolding of results).

Anticipating user's search queries and ensuring they're included in your title tags (and meta description snippets), will potentially give you one or a few bolded words in your search display, driving greater visibility, differentiation, and hopefully driving a higher click-through rate as results appear to better match the user's intent.

Tip 5: The Switch Hitter

Do a search for [homes for sale] and you'll see results with title tags that don't include an exact query match. Why?

Google guesses, sometimes well, what you may be looking for based on a massive data set of prior queries, user interactions and semantically related themes that encapsulate certain queries.

The Hummingbird update helps Google interpret both the search query and the match with your on-page content.

Understanding the meaning of a search query opens up the possibility of many more search queries matching your page and opens up many more possibilities in the SERP for bolding and highlighting of results. (When you searched for "homes for sale", did you get "houses for sale" and "real estate" match via bold in the SERP?).

Leveraging thematic rather than exact match keyword rich title tags can help capture more than just the query you thought.

Tip 6: The Big Click

A title tag, when used as the clickable part of a search result, should not only be clickable, it should inspire clicks through some kind of call to action.

I noted bolding as a facet of Google's attempt to connect user queries with clicks, but there's way more to clickability that just formatting. I'm one of the many who calls headline writing a true art, because the element of inspiring clicks is about providing clear, concise and connective reasons for user clicks.

Most simple is a 'click here', but it's hardly inspirational, and in a world of SERPs where differentiation is key, building a subtle call to action into your result can be key to gaining more clicks.

I'll add a big caveat here. I tend to push most obvious calls to action into the meta description tag where there's more opportunity (and more characters / visible space) to build a story, however short that story may be. But there's still some instances where the addition of an active verb, distinct command or user mandate, can fit snugly into a title tag.

Searches such as [Find a Tennis Partner] can give some idea of what to expect, and connect with a new to town chap like myself for a few sets.

Tip 7: The Stand Out

You may not be top of page, but that doesn't mean you can't be top of mind! Don't underestimate the ability of a title tag to help you stand out from the crowd.

As both major engines have alluded to, SERP click-through rates provide a valuable (initial) signal of relevance and user engagement, which in the short term gives you traffic, and in the long term may affect your rankings.

Standing out can be more than just adding CAPITALS to your title tag. Review the SERP for key queries to analyze the competition and try to differentiate within the confines of the tips noted in this article.

Trying to be different, attractive, and ultimately more clickable than the competition is the key when higher ranking might be difficult. (Or from a well positioned competitor closer to impossible.)

Here's an amalgamation of results, one of which (in my opinion stands out a little more than the other). Which one would you click on?

Tip 8: The Databank

There's many ways to stand out, just as there's many ways to organize both the format and structure of your title tags.

One way to add differentiation and a little bit more 'clickable-ness' to your search result is through the inclusion of dynamic data. This is the tricky tip that takes a little development and planning, but the results can dramatically improve click-through rates.

Adding numbers of found results, items sold, or people involved can add both an element that attracts, and serve as a reminder to search bots of page changes that can inspire recrawls and faster indexing.

Although dynamic titles are often worth the bother of programming time, it does depend on your business and potential customer needs, if intent can be influenced through demonstration of scope and scale, then dynamic titles pulled from search or site data might be ideal method to stand out and inspire clicks.

Tip 9: The Brand

I've seen a fair amount of dissension in the SEO industry around "to brand or not to brand" your title tags. That highlights the fact that's there is no definitive answer, and no proof of the inclusion of brand keywords in the title tag having any additional lift from an SEO standpoint.

You should rank for your brand. Period. And if you don't, there's probably a lot more challenges ahead, including the possibility of a penalty, site availability, and any other number of SEO "deal-breakers".

I generally recommend the brand being visible for the home page, with consideration for numbers 3 & 4 above, either in the first position, or right after the key differentiator keywords.

Remember that on brand searches – [navigational] where Google thinks the user is looking for your brand and nothing else – the search results is likely to reflect a truncated version of your homepage title tag anyway. Review the SERP and adapt accordingly.

Tip 10: The Reality

Google can show whatever they like, and will. Do a brand search and you'll see a massively truncated result. This is based on user intent on navigational queries when Google thinks they know what you're looking for.

Following the best practices outlined above is designed to (hopefully) notgive Google any reason to swap out your results, though we've certainly seen tests (and Matt Cutts confirmed above) that Google can – and will – show anything they believe is more relevant to the searcher, even if you believe your title tag is great, Google can always think otherwise.

Test.

Bonus Tip: The Power Tag

In the 10 tips above I touch on the best or better practices for title tag formatting, SERP display, and click through, but the lowly title tag goes far beyond just these.

Anchor rich internal linking has long been an 'old hat' SEO fallback, leveraging anchor text as keyword reinforcement to search engines (and occasionally users) of what they should find at the other end of a link. Butonsite the title tag is a powerful tool that's almost certainly used by search engines to assess page topics and the logical connections between them.

In a naturally, user-centric built website (one that offers the best experience for users), links between topically relevant pages should be related via like, similar, parent, child and/or logical themes and hierarchy, offering title tags (as an indicator of page topic) as a perfect vehicle to underscore and reinforce page, topic and hierarchy relevance and association.

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The Fall of Google+: The Need for Thoughtful User Adoption Centered Strategy

Recently Google announced the resignation of Vic Gundotra a chief executive and visionary of the Google+ platform. Publications like Techcrunch already have detailed what this could mean for the future plans for the entire platform. At the very best Google+ is destined as a stand-alone platform. The once grand vision of a social network that would unify all Google products and rival and un-seed Facebook and Twitter in relevance and usability has been officially deemed a forgotten dream. In the end, even with Google’s might, they still couldn’t force the market to adopt the platform. To really understand where Google went wrong in their user adoption strategy, one needs to analyze the different phases of development and user engagement.

Phase 1- Happy Beginnings: Google+ Launch Generates Buzz & Excitement

Similar to other Google products the initial release was an invite only affair. The only way you could join the platform was through a forwarded invitation. People were eager to test out the platform where you could classify friends by circles, have multiple viewer controls and neatly organize your social network and link it across google products.  After signing up for the account though many users quickly realized that there were no significant differentiators or added social user value by using Google+. Most people signed up, created a basic profile and went inactive nearly immediately. Google created a buzz but failed in executing a differentiated, value driven customer proposition through Google+.

Phase 2- Open the Gates: Gmail Users, Company Platform

Google understood that there was not enough user engagement or sustained social interactions across the platform. Their solution to address this was to have everyone who has a gmail account be automatically signed up for the platform. In addition Google rewarded active users by promoting their posts and reputation through search engine rank results based on their Google platform content.

Companies slowly became aware of the value of posting and engaging in Google+ for SEO purposes. They could suddenly get an uptick in visibility on new content and existing pages by promoting them on Google+. Marketers and agency strategists preached the importance of the platform and its “unlocked potential. To this day one can find that most business pages on G+ have more posts than the bulk of it’s North American user base.

Google broke its cardinal rule and standard operating ethos by trying to “game” and incent users to the platform rather than have the experience of the platform be the primary draw.

Phase 3- Unwinding: All Mediocre Things Must Come to an End

Google realized that despite the grand vision and unified intent of Google+ the lack of market traction and “organic” interaction spelled doom. It was not enough to have the large user base, the incentives and the user friendly platform. The platform became a punch line with marketers only using it for the search engine rewards it afforded. At the end of the day the platform frustrated users and tied them unwillingly into the Google+ ecosystem. The end of the current vision of the Google+ platform shows that even Google cannot buy or coerce user engagement and adoption.  Google+ is a perfect case study for the need of thoughtful user adoption centered strategy in marketing. 

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Trust is the Most Valuable Currency Online, Is It Your Top Priority?

Trust has been a factor in the human economy forever, and today is no different. But, the way trust can be evaluated has changed dramatically over the past 100+ years, and the web has accelerated this change dramatically. It has created a world in which trust is at a premium, and smart businesses are focusing substantial effort on creating it for themselves.

The Corner Store

A hundred or more years ago, you didn't have a lot of choices for where you shopped. You more or less went to the corner store. The store may have been run by a congenial fellow named Sam, and he and his wife might be over your house once a month or so for dinner.

You knew each other. Developing trust was easy.

Sam may be a tougher businessperson than Joe, over in the next town, but he can't be too tough. Trust goes both ways and Sam knows it. Everybody works to get along with Sam (and vice versa), partly because the community just couldn't work otherwise.

Fast Forward – The Shopping Mall

As urbanization grew, more shopping options become available. In time, shopping malls make the scene.

Shoppers have many options, and the people they interface with at the stores aren't the owner. The salespeople have a lot less at stake than Sam.

However, there is still a store owner. They will still work to make sure that their customers get well treated and feel good about the experience. Why? Because there are competitive options. Nothing forces anyone to shop in their store, and if word starts to get around that their store doesn't provide good value, that would really hurt business.

To make matters worse, the rent to pay for the store location is really stiff. Losing a few customers can do more than reduce profits, it can easily put the store owner in a hole. They depend on their reputation in the market to remain in business and make some money along the way.

Fast Forward Again – The Early Days of the Web

Then came the Internet and the Web. People could throw up websites easily and cheaply. If they were smart about SEO, they could rank quickly for their websites for almost any search term, and sell people stuff. Many of these sites were churn and burn sites, and as the owner could replace it quickly if it failed, they had nothing at stake.

In addition, they were faceless, with no identity associated with the business. Searchers assumed that the sites that ranked high in the search engines were good sites, but sadly it was not always the case. Many people got badly burned.

Perhaps the pinnacle of all this was the scam emails looking for help with tens of millions of dollars:

Fast Forward One More Time – The Loop is Closing

This breakdown of trust was an anomaly, and it is in the process of fixing itself. There are many factors at work in this correction. Three of these are:

1. Search Engine Algorithm Improvements: The search engines are doing a better job at weeding out the bad sites. Not a perfect job just yet, but they are making progress.
2. Social Media: More and more people are using one or more social media sites. Bad news travels fast in social media, and anyone with a complaint can get an audience. Building a reputation on social media sites takes time, and a lot of work, but it is one of the best ways to build an aura of "trustability" around yourself and your business.
3. Online Reviews: There are an increasing number of ways to review businesses online. You can use sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp, or you can find reviews for businesses in Google Places. Many users make use of these mechanisms to evaluate a business before buying from them.

Generating Trust

One of the best ways to do this is to be visible. Like Sam and his corner store, make yourself accessible to others. You can do this by sharing useful and compelling content on your site, being active and engaging in social media, responding to complaints online, and proactively helping others online.

We won't get into what signals the search engines are measuring on social media here. But, I can tell you that if many people across the web trust you, somewhere along the way they will generate the signals the search engines are looking for, be it links, or something else.

Building trust online may just be your top priority. Remember, be like Sam.

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The New AdWords Opportunities Tab - How to Get the Most Out Of It

Google announced an enhancement to the Opportunities tab in AdWords in November that aimed to help streamline paid search campaigns and make day-to-day management easier. The new graphical interface provides more in depth insights on ways to improve your campaign performance.

This tool is great because it's constantly checking for new areas of optimization that you can focus on. For example, if your ads aren't currently using sitelinks or call extensions, the Opportunities tab will provide estimates on the number of additional clicks and higher click-through rate for your campaign. It will also make recommendations to create new ads groups from existing keywords to provide more relevant ads to users.

If you are managing multiple accounts and adding new campaigns on a frequent basis, it can sometimes be difficult to keep track of what to optimize. This tool can help identity those areas, and assist you in ensuring your accounts function at their highest capacity.

However, as with most tools, there are hidden "gotchas," and the Opportunities tool is no exception to the rule. While the tool provides a lot of benefits, it's important to review Google's recommendations carefully before making changes. Below are some guidelines and considerations to keep in mind when using the Opportunities tab.

Recommended Budget Increases

Google always lets us know when we're below our daily budgets on campaigns. The Opportunities tab provides a nice summary of what you can expect to gain if you increase your budget:

If I drill into this deeper, Google shows me that by tripling my budget from $15 to $45 triples by impressions and clicks. It also triples my overall spend (keep in mind set daily budgets can over spend as much as 15-20 percent over the limit). The "Current" budget below is based on last week's performance:

Last week was a holiday week, and the campaign was intentionally bid down. The client also has a new budget for January that is significantly lower than the December budget, so increasing the daily budget will result in pacing too high, and the monthly budget will expire before the end of the month. While more spend gets me additional impressions and clicks, it would result in spending my budget way before the month ended.

Guidelines

Ensure your daily spend limits take into consideration the overall monthly budget. If you have a campaign that is pacing behind, consider increasing the daily budget, but ideally, you want to flight your spend evenly during the month. Large fluctuations in your daily budget make it difficult to document trends over time.

Also take into consideration days of the week that your spend is higher/lower, and if day-parting is active. Adjust your daily budget on the days of the week that have the highest conversions and/or click-through rates, while ensuring that you keep your budget in line with the monthly target. If you are using a day-parting strategy, ensure your budget covers the time period and your ads are showing during that time.

Adding New Keywords

Getting fresh keyword ideas is essential to any AdWords campaign. Search behaviors change over time, and it's important to capture fresh and new keywords that are relevant to your client's business. The Opportunities tab provides you with a list of new keywords in your campaign's ad groups:

In looking at the first recommended ad group opportunity, Google estimated that this new ad group would provide an additional 1,000 impressions, 18 clicks, and only $17 in cost per week.

In researching the 25 new keywords Google recommended, 5 were not relevant to the client's business. Several of the terms were also extremely broad, and had various meanings.

I ran the keywords through Google's Traffic Estimator tool to see if the impressions, clicks and cost estimates were the same as what was provided in the Opportunities tab:

5.04 – 6.09 clicks per week

978 – 1,190 impressions per week

$2.87 - $3.57 cost per week

While the number of impressions was about the same, the number of clicks and costs were significantly less.

Guidelines

While Google will provide you with keywords that it deems relevant, it's important to review these terms to ensure they are relevant to your client's business.

Know and understand what keywords are right for your client. Don't just add keywords because Google recommends adding them. Review the recommended keywords carefully to ensure they are the right keywords.

Also, it's important to note that the estimates for impressions, clicks, and costs may be somewhat different than what the Opportunities tab indicates.

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Inorganic vs. Organic Backlinking Strategies: Getting Back to Basics

The backlink within the practice of SEO is an ongoing topic of conversation for marketing, sales, delivery and reporting of SEO services. Even in a post Penguin world, SEO professionals are still asking questions such as:

• What’s the best way to build backlinks that will have a positive long-term impact on a web presence?
• Is quantity better than quality?
• Should I buy backlinks?
• How do I protect a web presence from future Google algorithm changes?
• How do I know how many organic backlinks versus inorganic backlinks my web presence has?

SEO Strategies & Backlinking Strategies

An SEO strategy is about one thing: being found organically by your customers and prospects for highly converting keywords; keywords that are relevant to your audience. Relevance of content is earned when diversified, relevant content sources with authority and influence reference your content. Or, in other words, link to it.

A backlinking strategy is simply about these three concepts:

• Relevance: Is this link coming from a relevant source that further supports the relevance of my content?
• Authority and Influence: Was the source of this link written by an authoritative, influential person or business?
• Diversity: By adding this link to my web presence am I diversifying and adding value to my digital footprint?

Every backlink you build should pass the RAID test.

If you're able to answer yes to these three questions, then you likely have an organic backlink that is going to positively impact your organic search visibility.

If you can't answer yes to these three questions, then you have an inorganic backlink that will have no impact on organic search results and may even penalize your web presence at some point in the future.

The Origins of the Backlink Pre-Search Engines

In the academic world, when content is published in the form of a thesis there are citations within the content that point to other relevant content from authoritative sources that support the content, thus making it more relevant to the reader. Sounds like a backlink.

Google's origins are academic in nature, having started as a research project at Stanford University. Larry Page was focused on, “the problem of finding out which web pages link to a given page, considering the number and nature of such backlinks to be valuable information about that page (with the role of citations in academic publishing in mind).”

The research project then went on, “to convert the backlink data that it gathered into a measure of importance for a given web page.” The output was, “for a given URL … a list of backlinks ranked by importance” or relevance.

That was 1996. Seventeen years later, relevancy is still at the core of Google's organic search algorithm, especially when it comes down to backlinks.

How Do You Get Relevant, Authoritative, Influential & Diversified Backlinks?

Roll up your sleeves and get to work. The really great organic backlinks that are going to add long-term value to your web presence, digital footprint and organic search positions and conversions won't happen overnight by buying or trading them, or submitting to directories. Remember, inorganic backlinks don't pass the RAID test.

Building organic backlinks takes a lot of heavy lifting in an approach called Optimized Content Marketing. Publishing fresh, relevant, optimized content on a continuous basis through industry blog sites, press releases, white papers and case studies that demonstrate knowledge and thought leadership, plus socializing the content through your social networks will create a strong inventory of organic backlinks over time.

This long-term approach to SEO will also protect you from any future Google algorithm changes and will make it extremely difficult for your competitors to outrank you.

Reporting Data for Organic vs. Inorganic Backlinks

Great SEO services and results start with great SEO data. Accurate, timely SEO data is required in order to make great decisions about what to do next to a web presence in order to make improvements for organic search.

Be wary of SEO backlink data sources that include inorganic backlink data in their data sets. It is irrelevant to report on backlinks that are inorganic and have no impact on organic search. Reporting on a growing backlink count over time when those backlinks are inorganic is useless and will create unrealistic expectations with your clients.

Summary

Backlinking strategies within an SEO strategy are often overcomplicated. It doesn't have to be this way. Practice an optimized content marketing strategy and test each backlink with the RAID test and your web presence will excel over the long term in Google.

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