SEO | Optimizing Page Titles Will Save The Day
Search Engine Optimization

Sometimes I come across clients with projects/goals that are extremely difficult, and nearly impossible. Other times, there are small but meaningful things that can be done to achieve uber-cool results. This, my friends and fellow marketers, is an article on one of the first and most important steps to search engine optimization.

Have you ever searched in Google for a set of keywords and G-Dawg (as I shall coin it) spits out some odd results? For example, you’re looking for a restaurant in Los Angeles but all you see is an address and phone number that’s underlined, then a short imprecise description. Well, this — ::cries:: — is a common mistake over 75% of websites make. The page titles are one of the absolute most important parts of your website when it comes to search engine optimization and marketing. If search engine users have no clue what your website is about, where you’re located, and why they should visit your site, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

The incomplete and useless page titles are not something to get mad about, so please don’t yell at your web designer. Truly understanding and implementing proper page titles is an art in itself and most web designers lack the skill to both design/develop a website and also make it SEO friendly at the same time.  In a sense, this is like asking a heart surgeon to perform brain surgery — it just doesn’t work. Two totally different specialties.

To fix the issue, spend a few days mapping out the most important keywords for your business/website. What would you search for as an internet user? What keywords are best? These are very difficult questions. One excellent tool to help decide on keywords and phrases is the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. You can use this tool to either research keywords on an existing site, such as a competitor, or analyze keywords and phrases that you so choose. When I lookup the phrases “marketing firm” and “advertising firm” I notice that marketing firm receives around 110,000 searches per month whereas advertising firm receives only 18,100. This, to me, as an internet marketer, says marketing firm is the better set of keywords to target. Though ranking high under marketing firm will be more difficult, the amount of traffic this keyword set will generate is very beneficial. High ranking site + proper keywords sets = thousands if not millions of hits.

Once your intended keywords and phrases are chosen, and thoroughly — I mean thoroughly — thought out, open your index.html file for each page of your website and enter html code for the meta title and meta description. You can also enter additional information such as keywords, geographic location, publisher, copyright, etc., though I haven’t found anything except the keywords to be useful. Keep in mind most Flash websites will have only one index.html file, so if this is the case be sure to quadruple think your keywords. Please see a sample of the code used in The Brainchild Group’s index.html file below. The meta title and other meta information should be added below the <head> text on the top of your html file.

<title>Restaurant + Auto Marketing | Flash Web Design + eCommerce Development | SEO + Internet Marketing | The Brainchild Group – Beverly Hills
</title>
<meta name=”Description” content=”Restaurant + Auto Marketing | eCommerce Web Design, Flash Design, Internet Marketing, SEO, Consulting, Green Marketing | Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Orange County” />
  • <title>Restaurant Marketing + Auto Marketing | Marketing Firm in Los Angeles, CA | The Brainchild Group</title>
  • <meta name=”Description” content=”Restaurant + Auto Marketing | eCommerce Web Design, Flash Design, Internet Marketing, SEO, Consulting, Green Marketing | Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Orange County” />

After all changes are implemented, wait around 3-5 days and Google, along with most other search engines, will update their listings and display your new page titles and descriptions. Sites with high traffic may see updates in SERPS (search engine result pages) within a day and sites with low traffic can take 2-3 weeks. It all depends on the furry little search engine robots and how often they frequent the site.

Lastly… You have the pow-ah! (as Arnold would say)

Sincerely,
Aaron Schoenberger
The Brainchild Group

The Brainchild Group is a Los Angeles SEO Company that specializes in strategic search engine optimization for a variety of industries. Corporate SEO, Restaurant SEO, Law Firm SEO, WordPress SEO.