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HTML Page Titles and Descriptions

What is an HTML Page Title?

In Layman's terms, this means the blue bar at the top of your browser (if using Internet Explorer). When we've mentioned about optimising your website whilst it's still in the development stage, we weren't kidding.

Using your keywords, compile a second list of 'concentrated' keywords which will be the most used and most relevant to your site. For example, if you were a roller skate store which specialised in selling skates, parts and maintenance services, your site may have four pages; one for the skates, one for the parts, one for the maintenance services and one for your contact details.

Sum up your page's content using a maximum of 93 characters

Our experience here at Vizcom has provided us with the following which we use as a rough guideline: EJ uses Internet Explorer often, which is still the most popular web browser, and displays a total of 93 characters (including spaces), compared to Daniel who uses Mozilla Firefox and can see a total of 96 characters (again, including spaces). What this means is that, just like when you update your Twitter status, you have 90-odd characters to use to the best of your ability, so when you compile the second list of 'concentrated' keywords, you can have 93 characters to describe the page as best you can, using the most popular keywords relevant to your site and location if required.

For example: Roller Skates | Inline Skates | Quad Skates | Leeds | Yorkshire | UK

So back to our roller skate shop analogy, the keywords for each page would then be slightly different. Presuming that the home page is the one which lists all of the roller skates you have for sale, your keywords to be incorporated into the blue bar would be something along the lines of 'roller skates, inline skates, quad skates, Leeds, Yorkshire, UK'- presuming that our imaginary skate shop is located in Dewsbury, the little town on the outskirts of Leeds.

For the remaining pages of your website, follow the same procedure, finding the best words relevant to the roller skate parts and maintenance, and then the keywords relevant to your site and location. Google deems the word closest to the the left of your HTML page title the most relevant and important.

So put the search term there you really want to target Eg: Roller Skates. Remember if you are UK based that many people using search engines will add UK on the end of their search to further qualify their results and because you will often get search results from all over the world.

Searchenginesdontrecognisepunctuationorgrammar

Please bear in mind too, that search engines don't currently recognise punctuation or grammar, so the best way to seperate the words on the blue bar is to use commas, or to be really aesthetically pleasing - 'posts' which look like a long vertical line; also don't use forward slashes, as these look too similar to computer commands or coding and can be confused as such.

Don't waste your space

There is little point in using the name of your website or company name as part of your HTML title unless it's to be used on your 'contact' page, as that's not what potential customers are specifically looking for, or of course, that you're already a huge recognised brand that many people already know. You will have entered your company name in to your content anyway and should be found for this search term. It may be worth adding (to your contact page HTML page title) different spellings of your company name in case people use these to find your website. Your web statistics should provide you with this information.

With your other keywords, the 'unconcentrated' ones, divide these wisely between the pages of your website and enter them under the description of the webpage. When each page is searched for on Google, for example, the blue bar is the pages' title, and the text that the engine will see first.

The keywords describing the page will be listed in part or entirity below it, so make sure these make sense, and form them into short, descriptive sentences if possible. This way, potential customers that are internet savvy can differentiate your page results from online directories.

The bottom line with keywords and search terms is that you are aiming to get potential customers onto your websites from many different angles - people who want to buy skates need to go to your skate catalogue, people who need new wheels and stoppers perhaps need to go to the accessories page, and those with broken skates need to be directed to Maintenance.

Don't just dump your visitor on the home page

Research has shown that by being lazy with your keywords and simply directing everyone to your home page, makes people leave your site and move onto another, perhaps that of your competitor. Why? Because internet users want to see the information they requested instantly, without having the hassle of negotiating the layout and various pages of your website to find the products they need.

This is also why, when constructing the site, after you've implanted the right keywords and search terms within each page, that you ensure that all of the pages within your domain link up flawlessly. Janet, your potential customer from Google, wants some skates for herself, but also for her kids, and look - she can go from the catalogue to the accessories page in just one click and pick up some helmets and safety pads too.

So, an ideal HTML title for Wheels of Steel's roller skate catalogue would probably look like this:

with some descriptive text which could read:

'Quad skates, inline skates, roller skates and roller blades. Adults and childrens sizes, accessories, pads and helmets. Free delivery. All major brands stocked. 10% off all orders over £50'.

Don't pack your description with spam - make it 'salesy'

With your description, you have approximately 130 characters to play with, including spaces of course, and it's essential you choose the right search terms and keywords that also provide a summary of your site and what it's about. Find your competitors on a search engine and see what descriptions they have used as a comparison; use this as a guidleine and aim to stand out, but also to include all of the information you can.

To date the HTML description has little effect on your search engine results but can have a massive effect on your click-through rates. Research has shown than people are now clicking through to the second page to find what they want 'scanning' the descriptions for the most relevant to them. Treat this like an advert for your business don't just say what you sell but include special offers and anything unique about your service or product, basically anything which will encourage the visitor to click-through to your website.

So using the above description as example, the words "Free delivery. All major brands stocked. 10% off all orders over £50" are there to encourage people to click-through. Don't fall in to the trap of packing your description with keywords and trying to trick the search engines like many people do, it won't encourage click-through and is a waste.

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