title keywords and description optimisation

any pointers?

[HelenDev]

Currently I have the title, description and keywords in an include file which is on all pages on my site. This means that they are all the same, but I have read that they should be different - I guess this would make sense for search engine results pages.

With this in mind I have decided to have a site review of this, and I would like to know what else I should be bearing in mind when I make changes.

I have ten quite general keywords. I have heard the phrase 'keyword density' talked about quite a lot, but I don't know exactly what this means (anyone?)

Finally, my site seems to be doing OK on google, so I don't want to do anything which might harm this.

If anyone has any suggestions they will be gladly received.

[koocw]

I read somewhere that general keywords aren't really good because they are, well, general and there will be more sites competing for them.

I guess since your site is doing so well, you should stick to those keywords.

Keyword density refers to the ratio of the total words to the number of times your keyword appears.

[Moby_Dim]

Title and description are the same on all pages on the site, and OK with G?! Is this true?

[HelenDev]

Well, when I say we are doing OK with Google, they have listed us, spider us regularly and the page rank is going in the right direction. I'm sure we could probably be doing better, but I don't want to do anything to make things worse, if you see what I mean.

[Moby_Dim]

But every page is a unique document on a site, and every unique document should have it's own title. This's not my own brand-new idea.

[HelenDev]

I'm sure you're right, Moby. I just wanted to gauge some opinions before diving in and changing loads of pages.

[sem4u]

You should have unique title tags at least, and different meta description and keywords tags if you have time.

[pageoneresults]

Here's a good start HelenDev...

Building the Perfect Page - Part I - The Basics [webmasterworld.com]

[HelenDev]

Thanks for all your replies guys - definitely some stuff to think about. I do have one other question though, relating to the title tag.

My current home page title is along the lines of

<title>A selection of widgets</title>

Should the title contain the company name as well

<title>MyCompany: A selection of widgets</title>

I read something a while back (I think it was on the webmonkey site) which suggested that the former was better than the latter for generating traffic. Does anyone agree/disagree with this?

The only thing I can think of is that the latter might make more sense to people in the search engine results pages.

[sem4u]

How about:

<title>A selection of widgets types A and B from company name</title>

I would put the company name at the end of the title (if at all), unless your company is a major brand people are searching for.

[graywolf]

I'm sure we could probably be doing better, but I don't want to do anything to make things worse, if you see what I mean.

My grandma used to have a saying "you can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs"

[Moby_Dim]

Imagine any page of your site as an entrance. The main one (homepage) probably may have <title>Your Company : Main keyphrase(s)</title>, while others may have <title>Keyphrase(s) Your Company </title>. Main company entrance with the name above - why not? But no sense to stress the company name in other secondary entr-s, better tell your visitors about the meaning of the "secondary" door. Your s/e brought visitors woun't come via the main page for sure, but via one of the numerous "product" pages. So product is #1 here.

[HelenDev]

My grandma used to have a saying "you can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs"

Good point. I guess I was just worried about my boss breaking my neck ;) Still, nothing ventured...

Cheers Moby_Dim - I am going to put the company name in the <title> of some of the main 'doorway' pages, but not in the <title>s of the actual products pages themselves.

[alika]

I had a client once who used the company's name and phone number as the title of their site. Then they cry that they don't have any traffic :o)

I agree with the suggestion of putting your company name last and keywords first. That works for us all the time

[Moby_Dim]

Phone#? This's tooooooo much! ;)
A small remark - comp.name being the first (even the only) word in homepage's <title> can not be the cause of total site poor results. Probably there were more serious problems with other pages?