April 2, 2008

Title Tag Copywriting Tips for Newbie SEOs

The title tag is one of the most important pieces of content when it comes to search engine optimization. There are two reasons why:

It's the first thing searchers will see when they scour results on a search engine
Search engine spiders tend to give some weight to title tags for indexing purposes

Title tags might be difficult for some copywriters to embrace because there's such a short amount of space to work with. But there's tremendous opportunity here to drive visitors to the web site you're optimizing and here are some tricks to get the job done.

Blend Keywords

Let's say you need to cram "boys bedding" and "baseball bedding" into the same title tag, as well as include the company name. You can combine the two keyword phrases into one phrase. Try "boys' baseball bedding" or "Baseball bedding for boys."

Company Name Placement

Unless you're keyword is the company name, the brand name should always go at the end. If a searcher is looking for "baseball bedding" – then you want that term to come as close to the beginning of the title tag as possible. The first words of the title tag should match the searchers words as much as possible. Companies resist this tactic, but it's good for usability and some would argue it's good for search engine placement as well. So, now our title tag looks like "Boys' baseball bedding at Company Name."

Calls to Action

Incorporating a call to action into your title tag is a great way to help searchers know what to do next. You know this because you place calls to action in your copy. Now, use this tried and true tactic in your title tags.

Following along our bedding theme, possible title tags could be:

"Boys' baseball bedding now 15% off at Company Name."
"Great deals on boys' baseball bedding at Company Name."
"Durable boys baseball bedding at Company Name."

As you can see, incorporating a call to action with blended keywords can help your title tag stand out from all the other search results, which is especially useful in a competitive niche.

If you're just starting out, or only have limited time to devote to on-page SEO, then writing good title tags is a great place to start. Don't overlook this opportunity to both tell search engines what your page is about, and to communicate directly to searchers as they scan the search results page.

For more on Title Tags, check out:

HTML Title Tag Defines Your SEO Strategy Meta Tags As Persuasive Content

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:48 AM | Permalink

December 6, 2006

A Closer Look at Hitwise's Search Intelligence Tool

Continuing our reviews of keyword research tools, guest writer Christine Churchill takes a deeper look at Hitwise's Search Intelligence tool in today's SearchDay article, Keyword Research or "Search Intelligence?".

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:32 AM | Permalink

October 26, 2006

Yahoo To Add No Yahoo Directory Tag

Rejoice! I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Yahoo! is to add no yahoo directory tag support soon. Yesterday Yahoo added support for the NOODP tag, and based on a WebmasterWorld thread, requesting Yahoo to also support a tag to prevent the Yahoo Directory title and description from showing, Tim Mayer of Yahoo said, they are working on it. He also asked for our input on if they should make "a different tag or should the NOODP tag apply to both YDIR and ODP?"

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:22 AM | Permalink

October 25, 2006

Yahoo Adds NOODP Support & Weather Report Update

The Yahoo Search Blog announced that Yahoo has finally added support for the NOODP META tag. You can deploy this two ways;

META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP" (stops MSN, Google and Yahoo from using ODP directory) or META NAME="Slurp" CONTENT="NOODP (stops just Yahoo from using ODP directory)

I reported back on October 11th that this was coming and Danny explains why NOODP tag support is not enough, we need it to support a method to tell Yahoo not to use the Yahoo Directory title and description as well.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:37 AM | Permalink

October 11, 2006

Yahoo To Support The NOODP Tag; Won't Prevent Display Of Yahoo Directory Title

Last night, I spoke with Tim Mayer of Yahoo about supporting the NOODP tag at Yahoo. In short, the NOODP tag allows webmasters to tell the search engine not to use the ODP's title in the web search results. MSN was the first to implement the standard, and then Google followed. Tim Mayer said that Yahoo will be supporting the NOODP tag starting next week or the week after. But the tag will not prevent the Yahoo Directory title from displaying in the Yahoo search results.

Tim Mayer explained that Yahoo uses an algorithm to figure out when to use the title provided by (a) the webmaster, (b) the ODP directory or (c) Yahoo Directory. He said that since the NOODP is a standard already, they will add support for it. But they did not want to create a new meta tag to exclude the Yahoo Directory, because they use algorithms to best determine when to use which title. He said it doesn't mean they will not create a new tag in the future, but the NOODP tag that will be released next week will only prevent the ODP title/description from displaying.

Danny and I feel that the NOODP tag should not just tell Yahoo to not display the ODP title but also be used to tell Yahoo to not use the Yahoo Directory title. Danny clearly showed me how Yahoo's algorithms to determine when to use what title is not working a 100%.

A search on tony knowles shows the same thing it did back when he wrote; "you'll see that tonyknowles.com is given a description by Yahoo about his senate attempt. That was correct at the time, but since then, Knowles has changed the web site over for his gubernatorial attempt."

So something needs to be done here as well.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:28 AM | Permalink

September 25, 2006

Google Displaying Really Long Site Descriptions?

Philipp Lenssen spotted a screen capture of Google displaying a really long and extended description within the search results page for a search on [blogspot.com autoregistration]. I personally do not see the nine or so line description myself. Matt Cutts of Google commented saying he was also not able to "recreate those snippets," so maybe a temporary Google bug, spyware, or a fake?

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 12:40 PM | Permalink

July 13, 2006

Google Adds Supports For NOODP Tag To Opt Out Of ODP Titles

Singing for joy! Google has now added support for the NOODP tag that MSN initiated on May 22nd of this year. Yes, Danny asked for this back in June, and now Google has granted our wish. If you have one of those pesky titles pulled from the ODP (dmoz.org) directory, don't fret it, just add the NOODP tag.

How do you do it? Just add <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP"> to your page source. If you want to just exclude MSN use <META NAME="msnbot" CONTENT="NOODP"> if you just want to exclude Google use <META NAME="googlebot" CONTENT="NOODP">.

Keep in mind, it takes time for Google to spider your pages and then determine if you do not want to use the ODP title. So if you add the tag today, it may take several weeks to have an impact.

Webmasters, this can have a huge affect on your organic traffic. If you have a poor ODP title and Google uses it in the results, by tweaking your title, your click-through rate from Google can potentially dramatically increase.

More details at Inside Google Sitemaps blog and the help section at Google.

Postscript: There is a bit of confusion that this tag only tells Google not to display the ODP description in the search results. This is not correct, Google will not display both the description and the title from the ODP in the Google search results with the implementation of this tag.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:19 PM | Permalink

June 9, 2006

"Gnomedex 2002" On Google Shows Again The Need For Webmaster Control Over Titles & Descriptions

We've written before about the need for search engines to give webmasters more control over their titles and descriptions. Today, I came across another good example illustrating why this is needed -- Google telling me that Chris Pirillo's popular Gnomedex event is happening in 2002, as you see in the screenshot above.

I'm usually not one to do much with screenshots, but I'm jumping into them big time with this post to help illustrate why this problem is happening. Gnomedex is listed in the Open Directory's fairly well abandoned Cyberspace Events category. Here's how it looks there:

Ages ago, some human editor there wrote up a title and description for the then-Gnomedex 2002 event. Now when you search on Google, Google decides to use that title and description rather than pulling information from the Gnomedex home page itself.

This won't always happen. For example, look at this screenshot:

Now the title is different. What happened? Google dynamically decided that using the title from the HTML title tag of the Gnomedex home page was more relevant than using the Open Directory's title of this page. Notice that previously I searched for just gnomedex but in the second screenshot, I looked for gnomedex tech conference. Adding those additional words not only changed the results but also how Google felt it should describe the page.

Now look here:

This time, BOTH the title and description are drawn from the page itself, rather than the Open Directory. What happened? My query changed to gnomedex tech conference enthusiasts. Google again examines the Open Directory's title and description for the page to see if it contains my search words or would be relevant to show. It decides against that and instead turns to using content from the page itself.

There are very good reasons for descriptions to dynamically change. Extracting text from a page that matches what you've searched for can help you know if that's a good page to click through to. That's the primarily reason Google did dynamic snippets/descriptions ages ago.

Nor do you want to always depend on the meta description tag. As I'll show in a future post, many authoring programs can insert this tag (along with title tags) with no descriptions or with no information. That's bad -- and that's one reason why Google depends on the Open Directory information in part.

But enough is enough. MSN Search just introduced a way for site owners to just say no to having the Open Directory information be used to describe their pages. I want the rest of the search engines to climb on board with it. Using that would eliminate the problem above, just as it would eliminate the case we've already written about, where Google is making it seem as an Alaskan gubernatorial candidate has already been elected.

Since I'm doing screenshots, let me spin that one out, as well:

As you can see, a search on alaska governor shows you both a fact result at the top of the page (and it's correct -- Frank Murkowksi is the governor) plus a link to the official site for Murkowski.

Now Tony Knowles used to be governor of Alaska. The former two-termer wants the job again, so he's running against Murkowksi. He's even got a campaign web site, as you can see in a search for his name:

In fact, you can also see in the screenshot that the Knowles campaign has been so successful that he's already been declared governor of Alaska by Google in the same search results. Look at the second listing, and you'll see the title for the official Alaska governor web site is "Governor Tony Knowles."

What's going on? And why's the description mention Murkowski as governor? Again, it's an Open Directory issue, where Google has decided to use just the outdated title from over there.

This Open Directory category, until recently, used that title for the governor's web site. The ODP has since fixed it after Threadwatch brought attention to it, but it's still floating around in the data stream. For example, here's a search at the ODP showing it:

FYI, this isn't just a Google issue. Over at Ask for tony knowles:

You can see in the third listing that Ask does exactly what Google is doing. But also look at the candidate web site listed first. Isn't he running for governor? Yes, but the OPD still has him listed here as running for US Senate. Ask used both the ODP title and description, making this seem out of date.

And here's MSN, birthplace of the noodp meta tag you can use to prevent this type of stuff happening. For a search on tony knowles:

Oops -- Tony is both running Alaska as governor currently and also has gone back in time to run for US Senate. The good news is, if he can go back and get elected, then maybe he'll meet with Sergey Brin last Tuesday when other senators refused to at the last minute and help lobby his counterparts in the US House Of Representative not to vote against net neutrality, as they did yesterday. Time travel -- magic!

Seriously, while it's great to have the opt-out, that's only going to help if people proactively use it. Most will not do so until after some big problem is flashed in their face. A better solution these days is probably to stop using the ODP as a data source at all unless people specifically opt-in for using its titles and descriptions.

Well, at least Yahoo doesn't have these types of problems. After all, Yahoo uses stuff from its own Yahoo Directory. So in a search on tony knowles:

Man, can't the ODP get a break? Sure -- this time, it's the Yahoo Directory category that is out of date. Cruise over there, and you'll see that tonyknowles.com is given a description by Yahoo about his senate attempt. That was correct at the time, but since then, Knowles has changed the web site over for his gubernatorial attempt.

FYI, sometimes Yahoo DOES use the OPD as well as its own directory. So a noodp tag would be useful to help things there -- plus perhaps a noyahoo tag as well.

Let's go back to Gnomedex, and I'll finish off with a few things. Here's what Ask is currently showing:

First, the Smart Answer on the top from Wikipedia is pretty nice, I think. But how about the listing of the site itself. What's with this "Gnomedex 6.0" stuff?

That was the title tag on the site the last time Ask was there, which according to the cached page was May 22. Since the title tag has changed since then, the two don't match. That will get corrected the next time Ask goes back -- assuming it doesn't decide to use the ODP listing, for some reason.

As I said, a good first move would be for all the other search engines to get behind the noodp tag that MSN introduced. Honestly, a better solution would be to stop using the ODP information altogether, so this type of stuff stops happening.

FYI, for more background, Proposed Search Engine Standard For Titles & Descriptions on our Search Engine Watch Forums covers a long discussion we had on the topic last year. That led to a live forum discussion on the topic involving search engine reps that's covered here: Session Five: Day Two: Indexing Summit 2: Redirects, Titles & Descriptions.

I've been terribly, terribly remiss in not doing the last follow through myself on what was discussed, including the idea of a "I really mean it -- I'm not just making a mistake" meta tag that tells the search engines to only use material from your web page. I did a short summary of the results here, and next week, I'll finally make time to get things finished up on that. The time is finally right for change, I suspect.

Want to comment or discuss? Start a thread in the Search Engine Optimization section of our Search Engine Watch Forums, and we'll come back and link to it from here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:54 AM | Permalink

June 6, 2006

Funny Example Of Why DMOZ Titles Are Bad In Search Results

Threadwatch posted a funny example of why DMOZ (ODP) directory titles should not always be used in the Google search results page. Search for Tony Knowles and you will see the top two results read, "Tony Knowles for Governor" and "Governor Tony Knowles" respectively. Yes, Tony Knowles is running to be the Governor Alaska but is not yet the governor there. If you click through to the second result, the one that reads "Governor Tony Knowles", and points to http://gov.state.ak.us/, you will notice the actual title of the page is "Governor Frank Murkowski," the current Governor of Alaska. So where did the "Governor Tony Knowles" title come from? From the DMOZ listing. Kudos for MSN adding an opt out of ODP titles, hopefully Google will follow.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:35 AM | Permalink

May 22, 2006

MSN Allows Webmasters To Opt Out Of ODP Titles

Huge props to MSN Search for enabling Webmasters to tell MSN not to display a site's ODP directory title in the MSN Search results. Basically, some times when a site is listed in MSN Search results, they use the ODP (dmoz.org) directory listing's data, specifically the title and description from the ODP database. Now, MSN allows Webmasters to specify if that data should be used or not.

How do you implement it?

Place one of these tags with the other meta tags on your page.

Keep in mind, it may take a few weeks for MSN to notice this tag in your pages.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 2:14 PM | Permalink

September 21, 2005

Save the Time of the Searcher: Yahoo's New "Quick Links"

On Search Engine Roundtable, Barry blogs about Yahoo's new Quick Links feature that you'll now find included in some Yahoo web results summaries.

Quick Links allow the searcher to save time and clicks (something we like) by integrating direct links to specific parts of web site. For example, this search for American Airlines shows Quick Links right below the text snippet. You'll find links to the reservations, travel info, and AAdvantage (American's frequent flyer program) portions of the American web site. On the Yahoo Search Blog, you'll read more about the technology and learn that Quick Links are generated by an algorithm that, "tries to guess the most used information about that page." Also on the blog you'll find a Quick Links example where services like cool send to phone feature from Yahoo Local are also included as a Quick Link. Note: When I searched for several stores and restaurants in my neighborhood I found web pages about these places but they didn't show any Quick Links. It's likely that Yahoo is gradually rolling out Quick Links for local establishments.

Embedding links to non-web search services (like the send to phone feature) also reminds me that while those of us who watch the close industry closely know about specific tools and databases that Yahoo and other large engines offer, many users only know about web results. This is why including links to these services on web results pages gives "web search only" users a chance to learn about and use non-web search services. Heck, all of the major engines now include thumbnail images from their imagery databases on web results pages if the query string suggests that the searcher is looking for this type of material. Promotion and timesavers all rolled into one.

Finally, Yahoo's new service will likely remind you of what Google has been testing in the past few weeks.

Want to discuss Yahoo Quick Links? Here's a link to a thread in the SEW Forums.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:17 PM | Permalink

September 20, 2005

The Importance of Keyword Research

One of the first things anyone embarking on a search marketing effort learns is that effective selection and use of keywords can make or break a campaign. Keyword research is an art, but the appropriate use of tools can help you practice the art much more effectively.

The folks who offer Wordtracker, one of the most popular keyword research tools, invited a number of search marketing experts to contribute their thoughts in a guide to keyword research that they're making freely available. I've got a review of the guide in today's SearchDay article, An Experts' Guide to Keyword Research.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 8:55 AM | Permalink

May 19, 2005

Time For Search Standards For Titles & Description?

I've written before about how it is becoming more noticeable that Google may substitute titles and descriptions from the Open Directory for its listings in place of using material from the page itself. We just had another question come up on our forums about this, highlighting how the action makes (to me) for a bad listing for HP. Nor is Google alone in this type of substitution. Over the past few weeks, I've been thinking that webmasters perhaps need to regain control in this area. Now I've posted a proposed standard that the search engines might follow. You'll find that listed at the top of this Search Engine Watch Forum thread: Proposed Search Engine Standard For Titles & Descriptions. You can also vote on suggested options in the thread. Please come by and vote or contribute your own comments.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:50 AM | Permalink

April 6, 2005

Google Using ODP Titles In Addition To Descriptions

Google has long used Open Directory descriptions in some cases for the web pages it lists. While that usage seems to have ramped up, it's doing something else I've never seen or heard of before -- using ODP titles for some of the pages in its listings.

Until now, no major search engine has presumed that it should replace a page's HTML title tag as the source of the titles in its listings, that I can recall. And, I'm not sure I like the change. Yes, it will help searchers get a better experience for some searches. However, the idea that the title of my page may come from something completely outside of my control also makes me wary.

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable has a good illustration here of what's going on here: Google Showing Dynamic Title. More examples and discussion of this is in forum thread, Google shows different titles depending on search term used. Join that, if you'd like to chime in.

Also see the Meta descriptions displayed in Google results? thread for talk of how the ODP seems to be used more in some cases by Google, and the Does Yahoo Directory use DMOZ listings as the supplementary listings? for a recap of how the ODP even can factor into Yahoo descriptions, plus how other things may influence what Yahoo uses as a description.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:14 PM | Permalink

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