Proof, if needed, of the importance of title tags?

[thebloke]

I recently completely rebuilt our site, www.choicequote.co.uk and used, to the best of my knowledge, every trick in the book to try to improve our search engine positioning, predominantly for Google.

For most of our keywords, we pretty much hit the heights (haulage insurance, pickup insurance, scooter insurance, motor fleet insurance and a few others) however for 2 of our major keywords, motorcycle insurance and van insurance we were well down the rankings.

Then, it occurred to me that the only real difference with motorcycle and van was the title tag. Both of these had the word 'cheap' before the main keywords. A quick search for cheap motorcycle insurance and cheap van insurance found us much higher up - nearer to where we expected to be.

I've now removed the word 'cheap' from my title tag and I'm waiting to see if this has the expected result.

I'm sure this is old news but I thought it worth mentioning while I had a real-life working example!

[kgun]

50 % filled green indicator on the Google toolbar. Not bad now, since that indicator seem much more stable than during the Burbon Update.

Yes, and http://choicequote.co.uk/ redirects to http://www.choicequote.co.uk/ that it should.

Cooking's for girls, right? Wrong. Cooking is one of the best ways to impress your partner. Seriously. We can't all play premiership football, drive Lamborghini's or win the world heavyweight title but there is a far easier way of wowing your other half.

You don't have to be a fully trained chef either. We can't all wield a kitchen knife like a samurai. What we can all do, however, is cook.
http://www.blokeinthekitchen.com/

I disagree. Is that the reason for the bad ranking of that site?

Even in Norway, most people from eastern Norway, can not "cook fish".

[thebloke]

I've never done any optimisation on the blokeinthekitchen site. In fact, I haven't touched that site for about a year. I've been concentrating my efforts on the site that I get paid for working on, choicequote.

I'm sure there are a couple of sure fire fish recipes on 'bloke'. Perhaps the good folk of eastern Norway should take a look!

;-)

[KeithO]

Originally Posted by thebloke

I recently completely rebuilt our site, www.choicequote.co.uk and used, to the best of my knowledge, every trick in the book to try to improve our search engine positioning, predominantly for Google.

For most of our keywords, we pretty much hit the heights (haulage insurance, pickup insurance, scooter insurance, motor fleet insurance and a few others) however for 2 of our major keywords, motorcycle insurance and van insurance we were well down the rankings.

Then, it occurred to me that the only real difference with motorcycle and van was the title tag. Both of these had the word 'cheap' before the main keywords. A quick search for cheap motorcycle insurance and cheap van insurance found us much higher up - nearer to where we expected to be.

I've now removed the word 'cheap' from my title tag and I'm waiting to see if this has the expected result.

I'm sure this is old news but I thought it worth mentioning while I had a real-life working example!

I would think the layout on the SERP's being

TITLE
ABSTRACT
URL

would be enough to prove the importance of title tags.

[thebloke]

Originally Posted by KeithO

I would think the layout on the SERP's being

would be enough to prove the importance of title tags.

Good point, well put.

There are people who use this site who are not as knowledgeable as you (like me, for example) who may be interested to learn these things.

Sorry if I've stated the obvious.

[KeithO]

we're all here to learn. :)

[writergrrrl48]

Sorry if I've stated the obvious.

For some of us, the "obvious" - ain't. :-)

I have LOTS to learn, so looking at your real life example is helpful.

I kind of missed understanding the whole cooking commentary, but that's OK ...