Title Tags

[Nurberk]

Hi,
I have a question about title tags. If I have a page on keyword - Dog Training for example - Should I set my title tag as the following - dog training, dog, training, train, etc - Or should I set it up as to where it sounds like a description such as
Dog Training - Learn from the best! In other words is it better to list keywords that are used through out the content , or use the main keyword in description form. Any information that you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

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Seattle Real Estate Agents Myspace Contact Tables

[bhartzer]

The title tag is what people first see in the search results--so it should be something like you suggest, "dog training - learn from the best". Keep in mind, though, that I wouldn't necessarily use "the best" in a title tag.

Use the meta description tag to write a good sentence about your page and use the meta keywords tag to highlight the most important keywords on that page.

[Webnauts]

Don't repeat keywords in your title tag. Some engines might consider that as spamming.

Write a title for humans, and not for search engines.

[adbart]

Put your keywords in there as the first couple of words, definitely, but don't repeat them *ever*.

For example, "Dog Training from Professionals"

or "Dog Training Experts - DogTrainers.com"

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by adbart

Put your keywords in there as the first couple of words, definitely, but don't repeat them *ever*.

For example, "Dog Training from Professionals"

or "Dog Training Experts - DogTrainers.com"

Exactly! Excellent post and excellent title!

[Ne0]

Personally I'd keep it as short and simple as possible... Dog Trainers </title>

When you get to using a ton of other words (especially stop words, like is of and if or etc..) you reduce your keywords presence and weight.

.02

[adbart]

I'd agree that using "tons" of words would not help, however I would disagree that you should exclusively use your keyword as the title.

100% keyword saturation is never advisable in my opinion.

Something slightly less keyword-agressive like the titles I mentioned above combine the best of both worlds:

1) Keeping the keywords prominent and obvious
2) Giving a tiny bit more information and avoiding 100% keyword saturation

[ebusiness4all]

As webnauts said "Write a title for humans, and not for search engines."

A short title MIGHT be more focused for the search engine bot ... but what is the point of being number 1 in the SERPS if the site at number 2 gets a much higher click through?

Ranking is one step on the route to creating value in your site. If the customer does not click on your link it is a wasted activity.

We also need to think like the marketing folk - what is going to get cut through and differentiate your link from all the other noise on the search results page. A good title and snippit can help to pull the customers in.

[craigmn3]

I am of the opinion that your title tag should be whatever you think your potential visitor will Search

my rule of thumb is that at least 50% of your title should be your keyword (just one as repeating could be considered spamming as mentioned above) If you can be descriptive in that 50% or better great

also your keyword should be first in the title

so if your are focusing on "Dog Training" you should probably avoid "Professional Dog Training" and go with "Dog Training by Professionals" Or better because it makes a weighter keyword "Dog Training Experts"


that is my opinion and it is worth every dime you paid for it.



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Addendum

Your Page Copy or Meta Description should focus in the first 100 characters or less as being the bait on the hook to bring in visitors.
The Title tag is just to valuable for SEO to be reckless with.

[chrisJumbo]

Great advice as always from the others. You can also optimize other pages to rank for other terms. For example, if you have offer Cat Training services also, (BTW, this is just an example, not recommended to try to train a cat to sit :O) ) you wouldn't want your title to be Dog and Cat Training Services. You would want seperate pages to focus in on the different services.

Likewise, if you will be offering Dog products, I would recommend a second page dedicated to the dog products and even multiple pages for even more focus (ie, Collars, Leashes, Food).

If you have speciality training for more than one breed, you could have pages for German Shepherd Training and Boxer Training.

[Hi-Tech]

Whatever you decide to make your title -- stick with it and don't change it once you do or you may suffer some ranking loss... I had a page ranking in the top 10 and then changed it a bit to reflect a new product line and suddenly lost about 15 spots soon afterwards. Coincidence or not I wouldn't risk it again...

[CarolineBogart3]

This is a great topic for me since I am SEO'ing a dog site!

I created a title for each category and then appended that with the items in the category.

So for instance:
Category Name: Toys - Let's Play!
Category Title: Dog Toy
Category Products: the dog toy names, comma separated...

Do you think this is good?
http://smalldogmall.com/index.php?pa...mart&Itemid=37

[adbart]

Had a look at your site... I know this isn't a 'review my site' thread but thought the following points were at least vaguely enough related....

Your title tags need some attention because they overclutter quite a lot (see previous posts).

Especially have a look at your page titles for each category, these are way too long and contain too many repeating words.

On another point altogether, the URL system for your shop is really hard for search engines to keep track of - look into using the apache mod_rewrite function to re-write the names of URLs for your shop....

You should change messy URLs like:

http://smalldogmall.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=37

To something a little easier like:

http://smalldogmall.com/collars/red_collar.php

This is really annoying to sort out but I'd highly recommend it. I did this with a previous e-commerce business of mine and it worked wonders.

Individual titles, meta keywords, and descriptions for each category and item description page also really help.

What shopping cart software are you using?

[RegDCP]

I have excellent results using only the keywords in the title tag.
Actually I find the best results are with the same string in each tag and a minimum of keywords.

Title = Professional dog training

Keywords = Professional dog training

Description = Professional dog training

Reg

[CarolineBogart3]

Originally Posted by adbart

Especially have a look at your page titles for each category, these are way too long and contain too many repeating words.

I am wondering about repeating words. I don't want the search engine to have to figure out what I mean.

This is very clear:
dog toy, dog toys, dog pull toy

Whereas this requires an algorithm to understand what I mean:
dog, toy, toys, pull

I completely agree about the URL. It's a Joomla system and the store is a VirtueMart component. I was worried that the search engine friendly links were confusing to the virtuemart component so I turned them off. I think you have a point. I can just do it by hand in the .htaccess file.

[wgoodman]

I guess the question is, can the keyword repeat if it they are contained in different key phrases:

Dog Collars, Dog Pull Toys, Dog Sweaters

This is exemplified all through the web. The number one site for "dog sweaters" has this for the title:

Pet Carriers, Small Dog Sweaters,Hanukah Toys and Holiday Treats , Fall Dog Sweaters & Lines of Italian Greyhound & Pug Clothing

"Dog Sweaters is repeated twice, but in different key phrases.

Wayne Goodman, Web Site Design, Search Engine Marketing

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by bhartzer

The title tag is what people first see in the search results--so it should be something like you suggest, "dog training - learn from the best". Keep in mind, though, that I wouldn't necessarily use "the best" in a title tag.

Use the meta description tag to write a good sentence about your page and use the meta keywords tag to highlight the most important keywords on that page.

is your service regional? if so put the city name in the title too, if not add a few more keywords you want to be found for when searching but to answer your question, i put keywords in the title tag and try my best to make it sound human like but if it doesn't im not too concerned cause...

"dog training, train your dogs the right way, a trained canine is always better"

...doesn't look too bad does it?

[okparrothead]

IMHO bhartzer and adbart are on the mark. I would only add one thing.

As the title is the first thing people see in the search results, it should always have your company name included. If the search engine drops your visitors on an interior page, they still need the company name.

Not "Our Menu" but "Bart's Burgers -- Our Menu"

Also remember that if this is the first thing they see, the title needs to grab their attention. So: "Bart's Burgers -- An Extensive Menu of Gourmet Burgers"

Write for the user not the search engine.

Peace

[jtracking]

Originally Posted by okparrothead

IMHO bhartzer and adbart are on the mark. I would only add one thing.

As the title is the first thing people see in the search results, it should always have your company name included. If the search engine drops your visitors on an interior page, they still need the company name.

Not "Our Menu" but "Bart's Burgers -- Our Menu"

Also remember that if this is the first thing they see, the title needs to grab their attention. So: "Bart's Burgers -- An Extensive Menu of Gourmet Burgers"

Write for the user not the search engine.

Peace

No, don;t bother with the name of your site or business in the title. it's a waste of keyword space. when working with the search engines and your name isn't Sony then it's useless...

no ones searching for barts dog training, their looking for dog training, how to train a dog...

my op.

[etechsupport]

I think it is better to use tools like goodkeywords tools and adword tool for getting effective keywords targeting "pet" word rather than dog.

[richard-s]

HTML "titles" should be chosen to help web visitors, rather than just to fool search engines.

Following the release of MS IE7, most visitors will soon be using "tabbed" browsers: Tabbed browsers display the first part of a web-page's title on the tab: The width of the tab shrinks when more web-pages are opened.

"Good" titles are meaningful even when abbreviated by narrow "tabs."

ps. Favicons are also more important with tabbed browsers.

Richard

[adbart]

Richard, nice little tip there actually: favicons are a nice little touch that adds professionalism to your webpage.

And I completely agree with your thoughts regarding "tabbed" browsers like IE7, Firefox, Opera, etc. You should try and make your title user-friendly rather than crammed with lots of repeating keywords.

Good post.