<title>Do You Know How to Format Your Title Tag?</title>

A well formatted ‘Title’ tag is the first step in a well formatted web site design. Without it, all the SEO (search engine optimization) techniques in the world aren’t going to help you for long.

Well Formatted 'Title'? Not!

If you have hired a web developer to build your web site and he doesn’t put in a good, and unique title for you on every page of your web site, then he hasn’t done his job.

What is a ‘Title’ tag?

Your ‘title‘ tag is:

• your title tag is an html code in the top of every web page
• the first descriptive text that a person sees when they do a search in the search engines
• the descriptive line of text that appears at the top of your web browser when you open up a web page. Make it memorable.
• the text line that is saved in someone’s browser when they save your site under their most favorite bookmarks
• it is databased by search engines to help people search for relative search terms. If those search terms are in your title, you will have a better chance at being found. If you don’t have a title, it is highly likely that when it comes to search engines, your web site will be passed over for a well-formatted web site with a relevant title.

How to Format a Web Site ‘Title’

Understanding the roll that your title plays in search engines is key to formatting good title text. If you ever hope to rank well in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN, then creating unique text on every page of your web site is going to be tantamount to success.

1. Keep your ‘title’ text under 6-7 words – which equals approximately 74 typed characters. Seventy-four typed characters equals approximately half a Twitter – no more.That seems so short.It doesn’t matter. Any longer and it will be cut off by the search engine database system and be lost anyway. So when you go to Google and put in a search term – the first line result you see will be your title.
2. Make it memorable: it is the first thing that your new potential client is going to see you want to catch their eye long enough for them to read your description and click on your link. It doesn’t have to be fancy or cute – straight forward and precise is usually the best. A simple title for a web site design company in Oklahoma City might read:
   <title>Web Site Designs for Oklahoma City Businesses</title>
3. Use keywords or phrases in your title tag. A word of caution. The title is NOT the place to load up on keywords or phrase. It is necessary to use ‘a’ keyword, or ‘a’ phrase. Notice in the above title I used the keywords ‘web site design’ and ‘Oklahoma City’ and I still kept the entire title short and simple.
4. Try not to repeat word. You don’t need to repeat yourself in your ‘title’ tag.

Check Your Web Site

Now is the time to go check each page of your web site. If you ‘title’ tag is the same on all of them, you will want to create unique titles for each page if you want to rank better in the search engines. If you had a web developer make your site and they didn’t do it properly – go back and make them finished the job.

I hope that this has helped you understand the value of your ‘Title’ tag. It is just one step in the ladder to search engine success.

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