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Thanks for the tips. :-)
I’m curious, though: how beneficial is it to place the keywords prior to the company name in the title tag?
I tend to place the company name up-front, then the page title and then (on occasion) keywords relevant to that particular page (usually in the form of a brief description). I’ve always assumed — from a usability point-of-view — this made it easier for the user to find the right tab/bookmark/favorite (in their web browser). Granted, I end up re-writing half the bookmarks I save, but I’d be surprised if the average user bothers. I guess there’s a balance some where …
What do you think?
Hi Adam,
That is actually a really good point and I hadn’t actually thought of that - I’m like you and I always re-write my bookmark titles if it’s not something obvious.
I guess it becomes a trade-off between usability and SEO. The benefit of maybe slightly higher rankings would be negligible compared to the usability pay-off.
If we’re looking from a combined SEO/Usability perspective I would probably put company name first, then keywords, then page title last. That way someone can easily find you in their bookmarks, and you still have the SEO benefit of having the keywords in there. Page title is probably not as important in terms of bookmarking as the company name should be enough of a reminder.
Solid advice Cheryl. It’s good to see that people seem to be catching on to the need for a discriptive anchor text, and not just “click here” or the like.
Thank you for this article.
It’s amazing how many people who seem to be web-savvy still go the lazy route and use “click here” for their links. I’ve even caught myself doing it from time to time when linking to MY OWN site from somewhere else.
Even the pros need reminders from time to time.
>> The keywords should actually go first, before the company name.
Not sure about SEO in this regards but from usability stand point the company name should come first. The reason for that is that if the user bookmarks your page, when they later look up your company, they will have a difficulty finding the bookmark if it starts with a word different to the company’s name.
I would disagree with company name first, keywords second. Think about how people use the site. Think about how Search Engines show your page titles. I did this for a previous company where they had their name first. The SERPS looked pretty useless - just a bunch of the company name. I reversed the title information to be keywords (which were book title - isbn) and then the company name. If I were bookmarking them, I would want the bookmark to be descriptive. What happens when you bookmark 15 pages from the same company. It would be much easier to search by topic, than to have 15 bookmarks starting with the same name (the company).
I say the opposite is true, use keywords first - then the company name. It will help for SERPs and bookmarking.
On a side note, isn’t all of this information pretty much extracted from Google’s quality guidelines?
Great simple but highly effective tips :)
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I find that just writing my post titles in plain english gets me the best search engine results. No fancy SEO techniques or anything, just simple language usually does the trick.
With page titles, you need to have the page title first and then the website name.
instead of using dirty words, just type paris hilton repeatedly haha ;)
overall i enjoy the post. it works for me and i got some great tips & reminders out of it.
cheers,
cindy
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