Choosing Effective Web Page Titles
What Role do Web Page Titles Play in SEO?
Choosing effective web page titles is the first step in building
a successful online business. Of all the SEO techniques, your choice
of web page titles is the most important. The more time and research
you put into this specific step, the better your results will be.
Page Titles Tutorial Scenario
I am a photographer with an online business marketing digital
stock photos. I am preparing to design the layout and select an
effective title for my barns page. Currently, I have four
stock photos of barns. This is where many small business owners
make the mistake of choosing titles that are too general for the
primary focus of the page. The title selected should not be
barns
The actual page content is not about barns.
People looking for stock photos of barns will not likely use
this search term. Research shows that the public is most likely
to use multiple keywords in search queries. Page titles should be
descriptive and relevant to the actual page content. In this scenario,
the focal point of the page is not barns, but rather
stock photos of barns. Once this information has been determined,
we can begin to research the selected phrase.
Determine the Target Audience
Identifying the target audience may also be important. In speaking
with various groups of people, I realized that photographers were
most likely to use the term photos, while the public was
most likely to use the term pictures. We already know through
research that the public is unlikely to use pictures for
their search query.
Again, it is simply too broad a search term. We could certainly
focus on digital stock photos, but that is not what this
page is about. (That may however, be an excellent selection for
a directory site map of all images on the site.) When it comes down
to it, this page is really about barn pictures.
Research Key Phrase to Refine Web Page Titles
Now I know exactly where to direct my focus. It is time to research
which specific search terms the public uses to find barn pictures
on the internet.
Using both tools, I would discover that users looking for barn
pictures are probably going to use the key phrase, barn pictures
or old barn pictures. Since I only have four
photos, I am going to choose ONE of these terms for the main phrase
and the other as a SECONDARY phrase. I can do this because the terms
are so CLOSELY related.
If I had 8-10 barn photos, instead of only four, I would design
two separate pages for this category of pictures. This would make
it possible to take advantage of both phrases individually. Now,
this is where it starts to get fun. This is where you get SMART
and take the time to do the EXTRA work that will make a tremendous
difference in the success of your online business.
Using SEO Techniques in Designing the Page
I would now design a category page of barn photos, and title
the page Barn Pictures - Old Barn Pictures. All factors, including content
need to focus on the selected phrase.
I would save the page file as barn-pictures.html.
Each image would also be saved with a file name involving the
keyword barn, such as barn-picture.jpg, old-barn-picture.jpg, red-barn-picture.jpg,
horse-barn-picture.jpg Now I would create thumbnails of my photos.
Under each thumbnail I am going to have a title for the picture
(my h2 tags) and a brief blurb about the individual photos.
Each thumbnail would lead to an html page, where the full sized
picture is located, with additional information about the image.
I would not use a special program to create the gallery, nor would
I use JavaScript pop up windows. Using this method, I can now design
four additional pages.
Each page title would be selected using key phrases found while
researching the original key phrase. Each page would use correlating
heading tags, file names and content information.
- Barn Picture - Picture of Barn
- Picture of Red Barn - Red Barn Picture
- Pole Barn Picture - Picture of Pole Barn
- Picture of Horse Barn - Horse Barn Picture
Is this starting to make more sense for you? Are you beginning
to see ways to build large numbers of pages on your site? If you
have a services page with a bulleted list of the services
your company provides, couldn’t each of the listed services link
to a full page of content focused on each specific service?
The more pages you create, the more opportunities the
public has to find your site.
Of course, someone is going to ask me, “What if you have as many
pictures as Corbis” Certainly with a company as large as Corbis,
this method would be difficult. However, we are not discussing companies
the size of Corbis. These types of companies spends hundreds of
thousands of dollars on website advertising and have thousands of
websites linked to them. They do not NEED this style of optimization
to get their business off the ground.
If I am correct, most people looking for tutorials on choosing
effective web page titles, are SMALL business owners just trying
to make a living.
I WILL SEE YOU AT THE TOP!
Mississippi Web Designer and SEO Training Specialist
Owner GNC Web Creations and Mississippi Photo Gallery
Link to Choosing Effective Web Page Titles
What Role do Web Page Titles Play in SEO?
If you feel that this article, has been helpful to you and that
it may also be beneficial to others, please consider adding it as
a resource link on your website, Ezine, or blog!
Choosing Effective Web Page Titles
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