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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Be Wary of How the Engines Use your Title and Meta Description Tags

Check out this stellar example of how the major search engines display results for Netflix’s home page.

netflix-title-serps

We see a high level of variation because while Ask & Google use the title and meta description directly from Netflix, Yahoo! and MSN are pulling data from the Yahoo! directory and DMOZ (respectively). I’d bet $50 that Netflix could get a 20%+ boost in their CTR at MSN simply by using the NOODP tag?

Currently, there’s no way to opt out of the Yahoo! directory listing. We’ve been trying to do it with one client for almost two years, but they won’t throw us out even when we don’t pay our dues! Someone at Yahoo! needs to fix that issue.

As search engines start to use metrics like CTR in the SERPs, you might lose more than just eyeballs - you’ll slide in rankings to boot. Here’s the strategy I’d recommend - look at your top 20-100 search referral phrases for the year, then search for each of them at the major engines. Note not just where you rank, but how well your “ad” (after all, what is a meta description tag if not ad copy) is written. Just as you constantly tweak and refine copy in your PPC listings, so too should you apply that same logic to the natural SERPs. You’ll probably find a far greater rate of return.

About The Author

Wahid Qazi is a Research Analyst, eBusiness and eMarketing Consultant, SEO Consultant, SEO Trainer, SEO Speaker and Author, specializes in eBusiness, eMarketing, SEO, branding and promotion and has trained dozens of qualified SEOs. He is a Professional SEO Consultant can be reached at http://www.wahidqazi.com/

Title Tag Showdown

In Rebecca’s Fresh Egg Internship experience, she mentioned a disagreement that Ammon Johns (Internet Marketing legend and someone I consider a mentor) and I have on the issue of brand names in title tags. The dispute centers around how a company’s brand name should be used in their title tags:

Ammon’s Strategy - Put the brand name first in the title tag of the home page, but at the end of the title tag on any interior pages. Thus, Amazon.com’s title tags might read: “Sony 46″ Bravia Televisions - Amazon.com”

Rand’s Strategy - If it’s a short brand name (not “Washington Mutual Bank” for example), always have the brand name preceed the content. So, in my view, Amazon’s title tag would read - “Amazon.com - Sony 46″ Bravia Televisions”

It seems like a small area to have a debate about, but both sides bring up good points.

Ammon’s Strengths:

You can fit more keywords into the visible portion of the title tag
Users only read the first few words of a title tag and are searching for information about a subject/product/etc, not a brand
Bookmark usability is far higher with descriptive title tags rather than brand-first tags

Rand’s Strengths:

The brand at the beginning serves to help remind the user of where they’re going and who’s providing the service - yeah, it’s beating them on the head a bit to have it on every page, but branding is an exposure-based system. Note the studies that say most TV ads have no recall until they’ve been viewed 7 or more times…
Having the brand first in the SERPs can make a user who knows/loves your brand choose you over results that may rank above you - think of the times you search for a product and see a C|Net review or an Epicurious recipe. Assuming those are brands you like, you’re far more inclined to click them than a dodgy brand/URL you’ve never seen before. Brands carry inherent trust.
Even if users don’t click you in the SERPs, seeing your brand front and center dozens of times over many searches will show them that you’re a strong brand, and brand recognition will follow. Sites like Expedia, Craigslist, Epinions and even, I’d argue, SEOmoz, have built brand recognition in this way.

For my caveat, I’d probably not put the brand name first in several of the clients Ammon was working on. I’d conceed the point that it’s not as valuable in many areas - just look at the title tags for our client, Avatar.

What’s your verdict? Is there a hard and fast rule? Should I be won over by Ammon’s years of experience and multiple strong points?

p.s. Somehow, I forgot to mention that Ammon is talking about this very same topic on the Fresh Egg Blog… Thanks to Kevgibbo for the reminder.

Best Practices for Title Tags

It’s been a while since I provided some straightforward, back to basics style advice and there can be little doubt that the title tag is worthy of attention for beginners and experts alike. And so I present…

How to Make the Best Title Tag Possible:

Brand your traffic

Use the title of your site or brand at the beginning or end of every title tag to help searchers know where they’re going and to increase return visits. If you’re struggling to find justification for this component, think of all the ad studies showing that consumers are willing to pay more for a “brand name” product than an off-brand or store brand item of the same type - apply this logic to the SERPs and you’ll find that users will go further down the rankings to click on a “trusted” brand.

Limit length to 65 characters (including spaces) or less

There’s no reason to cut off the last word and have it replaced with a “…” Note that the engines have fluctuated recently and Google, in particular, is now supporting up to 70 characters in some cases.

Incorporate keyword phrases

This one may seem obvious, but it’s critical that whatever your keyword research shows as being the most valuable for capturing searches gets prominently included in your title tag. It doesn’t have to be the first words, but it should be the semantic and logical center of attention.

Target longer phrases if they’re relevant

When choosing what keywords to include in a title tag, I often like to use as many as are completely relevant to the page at hand, while remaining accurate and descriptive. Thus, it can be much more valuable to have a title tag like “SkiDudes | Downhill Skiing Equipment & Accessories” rather than simply “SkiDudes | Skiing Equipment” - including those additional terms that are both relevant to the page and receive significant search traffic can bolster your page’s value. However, if you have a separate landing page for “Skiing accessories” than for “equipment,” then you shouldn’t include one term in the other’s title - you’ll be cannibalizing your rankings by forcing the engines to choose which page on your site is more relevant.

Use a divider

When splitting up the brand from the descriptive, I like to use the “|” symbol (aka the pipe bar). Others choose the arrow “>” or hyphen “-” and both work well. At times, however, I’ve found it useful to use the arrow or hyphen inside a title tag, as with a title like “SEO | SEM | Articles and Keyword Research - A Beginner’s Guide” hence my love of the pipe bar.

Focus on clickthrough & conversion rates

The title tag is exceptionally similar to the title you might write for paid search ads, only it’s harder to measure and improve because the stats aren’t provided for you as easily. However, if you’ve got a market that is relatively stable in search volume week-to-week, you can do some testing with your title tags and improve the clickthrough. Watch your analytics and, if it makes sense, buy search ads on the page as well - even if it’s just for a week or two, it can make a huge difference in the long run. A word of warning, though - be wary that you don’t focus entirely on CTR. Remember to continue measuring conversion rates. As MindValley Labs showed us, a lower CTR can sometimes be the better choice due to a higher conversion rate.

Target searcher intent

When you’re writing titles for web pages, keep in mind the search terms your audience employed to reach your site. If the intent is browsing or research-based, a more descriptive title tag is appropriate. If you’re reasonably sure the intent is a purchase, download or other action, make it clear in your title that this function can be performed at your site, i.e. “SkiDudes | View Snowboard Sizing Chart” or “SkiDudes | Buy Discount Snoqualmie Pass Lift Tickets”

Be consistent

Once you’ve determined a good formula for your pages in a given section or area of your site, stick to that regimen - you’ll find that as you become a trusted and successful “brand” in the SERPs, users will seek out your pages on a subject area and have expectations that you’ll want to fulfill.

Repeat in the headline

Re-using the title tag of each page as the H1 header tag can be valuable from both a keyword targeting standpoint and a user experience improvement. Users who go to a page from the SERPs will have the expectation of finding the title they clicked - deliver and you’ve fulfilled that obligation. Users will be more likely to stay on a page they’re reasonably certain fits their intended goal or query.

Any other suggestions that you’d like to include? Disagreements? Valuable links I should point to?

The Secret to Ranking at the Search Engines (that’s really no secret at all)

How I despise those awful, cheesy pages promoting the “secrets” of search engine optimization. How I loathe the slick salesman pictured in fuzzy, 1980’s-style photography promising you “the hidden tactics SEOs don’t wan’t you to know.” When most search folks think of the “ultimate secret” in SEO,” they probably think about one of these:

Keywords in the Title Tag
Spiderable Links & Content
Anchor Text in Links
Links from Quality Websites

Those are all good pieces of advice, and important to high rankings, but even the last one (links from quality websites) doesn’t convey the most important part of successful ranking campaigns. If there is one key to high search engine rankings, a single piece of advice that unlocks the door to the top of Google & Yahoo! it’s this: Your website must appeal to a link-savvy audience.

Simple? Sadly, no. The truth is that the very best website in the world that sells your product, offers your content or promotes your cause may not be good enough to make it to the top of the engines. Why? Because the world of search has an inherent bias to those sites with more links. It’s not enough to build links now through manual link requests or link buying, nor is it enough to bolster these link acquisitions with a flawlessly “optimized” website filled with keyword-targeted pages. These strategies, while effective in the short term, won’t guarantee you success in the long run. To have a shot at keeping the top positions for years to come, you need a strategy that naturally drives links to your site again and again. The “secret” is that the audience most sites appeal to is NOT the same audience that provides links, yet this group (the Linkerati) has the power to make or break a site’s rankings.

Let’s walk through a brief history of search engines to see how this happened:

Hotbot Monster

No, Hotbot Monster, back in the early days, you really weren’t. Measuring repetition of keywords and keyword placement and density led to some pretty bad results and a lot of cloaking and spamming.

Googlebot Links Rankings

With the arrival of Google’s PageRank and Apostolos Gerasoulis’ Teoma (now called ExpertRank), the search engines got smarter, mapping the link patterns of the web and giving higher ranks to those sites & pages with more inbound links.

Googlebot Natural Links

Over the last 8 years, the engines have been refining the way they measure links, taking into account context, relevance, trust and other metrics to help indicate which links are worth counting towards a particular ranking.

All of this algorithmic evolution means that sites wishing to rank at the top of the engines must have high quality, naturally given, topically relevant links. Since search rankings are so valuable, massive amounts of time and money pour into campaigns for the most competitive queries, making the struggle for placement increasingly difficult. This brings us to the fundamental issue that site creators struggle against - segmenting visitors accurately and appealing to the “Linkerati.”

Three Groups

Above are three groups of visitors, applicable to nearly every commercial or goal-oriented website in existence. While most sites do a reasonable job identifying and targeting the 2nd group (in blue) from the first (in green), this isn’t the case with the 3rd group (in red). Those red Llinkerati are essential to your site’s rankings - they are the great “secret” of long-term SEO success. In order to leverage their power, you must create compelling content that appeals to their desires. This really is no “secret” at all. In every interview and on every stage, you’ll hear representatives from Google, Yahoo!, MSN & Ask repeat this same mantra (albeit without the benefit of colorful diagrams). As an example:

“…the sort of people who have been doing “new” SEO, or whatever you want to call it, that’s social media optimization, link bait, things that are interesting to people and attract word of mouth and buzz, those sorts of sites naturally attract visitors, attract repeat visitors, attract back links, attract lots of discussion, those sorts of sites are going to benefit as the world goes forward.” - Matt Cutts in an interview with Gord Hotchkiss

Why are these Linkerati so powerful? What makes their opinions and influence so important to average website owners? Easy - the power to control the web’s link structure.

Links Per Month

The web’s content may still be overwhelmingly commercial and organizational in scope, controlled by exceutives at companies, museum curators, government taxonomists, etc. But, the link landscape of the web, particularly those links that point externally from sites, are dominated by the Linkerati. If your competitors or even organizations like Wikipedia, About.com, niche bloggers or industry news publications become more popular with the Linkerati than you, how can you ever expect to compete for search engine rankings?

This is the great “secret” of SEO - that (at least) some content on your website must be targeted to the Linkerati - fulfilling their unquenchable thirst for new material to link to and share and spread virally. Although they may be a vastly different population than your customers, you need their respect and approval in order to continue to draw in targeted leads from the engines.

Effective and optimized META Keywords Tags

Meta keywords tags are not very effective for major search engines, it is always suggested to have them instead of avoiding, a website should be optimized for all search engines not just for the BIG Three. This particular tag doesn’t require thinking process, one needs to put pre-selected keywords in it, keeping few given guidelines in mind.

What Is The Meta Keywords Tag?

It’s an HTML tag use to feed keywords to search engines, it helps search engines to identity the webpage relevance with respect to supplied keywords, it is declared after description tag of the webpage under head tag.

Is The Keywords Tag Still Important?

Not exactly, keywords tag has lost its value, search engines get smarter these days, they have set their own criteria to identify web pages with their relevancies, they take each word as “keyword OR phrase” present at webpage and they keep those words in priorities with their densities. There is no harm in utilizing this tag for better results.

How to Hide Keywords from Your Competitors?

If you use this tag, then obviously your competitors are going to know where you are focusing and what are your primary keywords? You should use KEYWORDS in BITS, distribute PHRASES into SINGLE KEYWORD, remove DUPLICATE keywords, keep all keywords UNIQUE.

Old Technique: “seo services, seo trainer, seo training, seo consultant, seo outsourcing, outsourcing services, seo consultancy”
BITS Technique: “seo, trainer, services, training, consultant, outsourcing, consultancy”

Tips To Write Effective Page Description Tag:

Optimize for relevant keywords
Use group of relevant keywords on a particular webpage
Put only those keywords which are focused on webpage
Don’t put all keywords in this tag
Don’t repeat keywords in this tag
Don’t use misspell keywords
Use keywords with small case letter
Use BITS technique to write keywords
Each individual page should be optimize for less than 10 keywords

How to Write Effective META Description Tag for Better Positioning in Yahoo and Msn

Description tag is another useful meta tag which takes prominent place at your web site’s header. There are SEOs who think that there is no worth using this meta tag, but majority of them still agree that this meta tag helps in optimizing websites for Yahoo and Msn, in this article you’ll learn how to effectively utilize it.

What Is The Meta Description Tag?

It’s an HTML tag use to feed description to search engines, it gives description of webpage to search engines, it is declared after title tag of the webpage under head tag.

Why Is The Description Tag Important?

Description tag is the very important tag, search engines take webpage description through this tag, though search engines don’t give any importance to this tag in their ranking algorithms but this tag can lead searchers to motivate and visit your website.

Tips To Write Effective Page Description Tag:

Describe your complete webpage in one single line or in a small paragraph
Forget about keywords, focus on “call to action” words with respect to page relevancy
Avoid covering complete website in one paragraph, try to focus on page
Use unique description tag for each page, since each page has unique content
Keep your description tag’s limit under 160 to 250 characters, longer sentences won’t give any value but they can be hurdle in deep crawl of your web page
Avoid using special characters such as ! @ # $ ^ & * ( }[ | ? /
Avoid all capital letter, try to use sentence case
Use motivational lines so that your listing will be clicked comparatively better than your competitors
Don’t misguide search engine visitors, write what is available there at the page

How to Write Effective Title Tags for Better Positioning

Title tag is the most important part of your web page, which is normally neglected by most webmasters and designers, in fact there are few SEOs who think optimizing “Title Tag” is worthless. Title tag plays very important role in page optimization and in this article you’ll learn how to optimize it.

What Is The Title Tag?

It’s an HTML tag use as a title or heading of the web page, it shows input text on the blue bar at the web page, it is declared at the beginning of the webpage under head tag. Your Home Page Title

Why Is The Title Tag Important?

Title tag is the most important tag, almost all search engines evaluate webpage with title tag and check the relevancy with other elements of the page as well, and search engines also present results of a search by displaying webpage titles as links in the first line of each query result.

Tips To Write Effective Page Title:

Try to place your most important keyword phrase at the beginning of the tag
Use your primary keyword phrase in the title tag at least once
Avoid using the same words multiple times
Use plural form of keyword phrase, specially which includes complete singular word in it (Example: manufacturers)
Use sentence case for keyword phrase but keep preposition in lower case
Keep your title tag’s limit under 70 to 90 characters, longer sentences won’t give any value but they can be hurdle in deep crawl of your web page
Avoid using special characters such as ! @ # $ ^ & * ( }[ | ? /
Avoid using stopping words such as or, and , with, for, by, etc
Use unique title tag for each page, since each page has unique content
Make your title interesting and “compelling” to the reader to convince them why they should click there