Title tag preference for Google

"Widgets - WidgetShop.com" or "Widgets"

[Tonearm]

Do you guys prefer to put something like:

Widgets - MyStore.com

in your title tag, or just:

Widgets

It seems like Google would rank the latter higher in most situations, but the former might result in more clicks.

[Miamacs]

Widget Store - Widgets of the season at MyWidgetStore.com

...

People link with the URL because they're too lazy to type anything.
Then, next up a few people link with the complete title.
Let the URL have those keywords. And the title the descriptions.

If you don't expect links, what I see the most effective, and skip by default as a user is:

WIDGET, WIDGETS NEW WIDGETS WIDGET REVIEWS WIDGET COMPARISON SHOPPING MYCITY WIDGETS

Some authority sites do this and get away with it... for no good reason.
The rest gets filtered out of course.

[Tonearm]

I don't expect many links at all. Are you saying it doesn't matter in that case?

[daveVk]

Would not include MyStore.com, if searchers know you domain name they will find you with out it. Try adding some words frequently searched for particularly words unique to your widgets, maybe your location if relevent, do not over do it.

[Tonearm]

Thanks Dave. That sounds like good advice.

[Bewenched]

I've often wondered about that myself. Although we dont use our domain name in the title except for main category pages. I've wondered about using for example:

meta title:
Widget Products Catalog
meta description:
Catalog of Widget Products. (short description). Buy Widget products online.

would having the word "buy" in the description be good or bad?

[potentialgeek]

A title is a title. So many people use a web page title for things it isn't, e.g: 1) a description; 2) a welcome mat; 3) a website title; 4) a bookmarking aid; 5) a subtitle; 6) a keyword-stuffer; and on an on.

When a page title isn't a title, and only a title, it looks contrived and unprofessional. Dashes, colons, etc., etc., included.

Hint: If it wouldn't look good standing alone on the cover of a book, like a book title, it sucks.

p/g

[irldonalb]

Hint: If it wouldn't look good standing alone on the cover of a book, like a book title, it sucks.

I agree if it doesn't read well, it's keyword stuffing...

[tedster]

I am completely in agreement about keyword stuffing and readability in the title element. And yet...

Right now (and there's no guarantee for how long) I still see URLs that rank for keywords that only appear way back in a very long title element -- far beyond the 70 character truncation point, and nowhere else on the page.

I advise against stuffing the title element, for many reasons. In fact, I love a short, punchy title -- because it draws the click. Getting a click is criticial, not just ranking. But I do see title stuffing working for some sites.

[Marshall]

I find doing something similar to breadcrumbs works, depending on the web site. One of my sites is a directory so I have "Site Name > Category > Page Title" as the page title. Seems to work well for me, at least on the site I am referring to.

Marshall

[pageoneresults]

Would not include MyStore.com.

There was a time where I might have agreed with that. These days though, I usually recommend using the company name at the end of the title on pages where appropriate. And, if that company name contains a primary keyword and/or phrase, that makes it all the better.

Another issue to consider is Branding. Even though people know you by name, they may not be typing your domain into their browser address bar. They may be just typing your name into their search box.

These days having a strong presence for your company name is imperative. There is a cottage industry that has evolved out of assisting companies in removing "unwanted" content about their company from the top 100 results. Part of that process involves establishing a strong presence for "company name" searches.

< a second discussion about Reputation Management and Google [webmasterworld.com]
was split into a separate thread. More comments about the title
element are still invited in the present thread. >

[edited by: tedster at 3:27 am (utc) on July 4, 2007]

[Tastatura]

For what it's worth you can take a clue how major SEs and portals are doing it.

If you look at G you will see that they include their company name (branding, searchability, etc) with fairly short title that includes major keywords.

For example:
for G's business solutions URI is:
bizsolutions.google.com/services/

and title: Google Business Solutions

On Yahoo side they, for the most part, take a bit opposite approach -

relevant title with branding that follows.
If for example you look at sports pages, say about basketball,on their portal you will see URI that looks something like
sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-kwd1-kwd2&prov=ap&type=lgns

and title:
kwd1 kwd2 kwd3 etc - NBA - Yahoo! Sports

Note that page titles AND URI's have relevant and complimentary keywords and branding as well ( but that in the titles they do not use .com / homepage URL as part of branding)

[edited by: tedster at 3:31 am (utc) on July 4, 2007]
[edit reason] I split off a second discussion [/edit]

[tedster]

...in the titles they do not use .com / homepage URL as part of branding

Good observatrion, Tastatura. Even Expedia doesn't use the .com in their title element -- and that's the company whose television ads actually SING the "dot commm" and burn it into your brain.

[Tonearm]

But what's the significance of that?

[tedster]

That using the ".com" in your page title is often not a branding practice followed by the heaviest of hitters, those who devote whole departments just to their marketing and branding. They save those four characters in the title element to do more important jobs.

[BigDave]

I would agree with not needing the ".com" when branding, but you damn well better include it if it is ".net" or ".org" or a ccTLD

[Tonearm]

I've been playing closer attention to the way different sites handle this, and I've noticed some:

Widgets

some:

Widgets - WidgetStore.com

and even some:

WidgetStore.com - Widgets

I wonder if that last one could be effective. I guess it depends on the site. Anyone using it effectively?

[wheel]

Just to chime in here, a title tag isn't a title of a page - not even close. Nobody out there in userland has a clue what a title tag is, nor do they ever see it. You know how hard it is to actually explain where the title tag is visible on a browser? At the top of the window, no no, above that, see where it says File/View? Above that, in the blue line....

Title tags should be written for two reasons only. On page optimization to a certain extent, and as part of your 'ad' or how your listing is displayed in the serps. The only user need that should be considered is motivating them to click on your listing in the serps instead of someone elses. It's not a page title, it's the title of your ad in the serps. Once they click on it from the serps, they never see a page title again. Write your title tag with that in mind - the one noted in the second or third post is an awfully good start IMO.

Honestly, it's really beyond me why the search engines even use this attribute for either ranking purposes or for displaying your listing. It's the absolute last thing on the page the user would ever notice. Actually, perhaps there's a case to be made that browsers should be placing the title tag in a more prominent position than where they do now.

[Jon_King]

Keyword/Subject ¦ Keyword/Subject.com

Legitimate keyword reinforcement and dually weighted.

[tedster]

There's another time that user's see the title element. If they use tabbed browsing, the very beginning of the title is displayed on the tab. If a site has visitors who might open more than one tab, this introduces a usablility component to allow people to tell the difference between the pages they've opened.

Fortunately, this need for tab usability is well aligned with search engine needs. But for this reason, I really get bugged by websites that always put their brand first in the title.

[edited by: tedster at 2:32 pm (utc) on July 6, 2007]

[Tonearm]

This is getting interesting. For Google, I hate to dilute the keywords I've chosen to appear as title tags, and there's also tedster's point of tabbed browsing.

Do you guys think I'm safe to try "WidgetStore.com - Widgets" for CTR without getting totally creamed in rankings?

[Tastatura]

Do you guys think I'm safe to try "WidgetStore.com - Widgets" for CTR without getting totally creamed in rankings?

IMO, sure it's safe - <title> is not only influencing/determining factor for CTR and rankings. You could have "off the wall" title and still rank well as there is a long list of influencing factors...

Talking about SERPs, in order to have a good CTR you first have to rank in order for visitor to see your listing. Once he/she sees your listing you have to "make" them want to click on your listing, once they land on your page... So before you worry about CTR, assure that your pages are visible to potential visitors/users (in SERPs or other mediums ) - without visibility you will not get any clicks

[Jon_King]

>>If they use tabbed browsing

I have been rewiting site search form results for exactly this reason. Man is it useful to have several seperate result pages all tabbed with unique search term as the title/tab.

[pageoneresults]

If they use tabbed browsing...

Not only tabbing, but bookmarking too. If you have a store using a breadcrumb type titling strategy, your breadcrumbs should be reading backwards in the <title> Element.

I usually end up changing the properties of my bookmarks because the titles were not what "I" would have wanted in my bookmarking (titling) naming schemes.

[Tonearm]

Tastatura,

I'm actually doing very well in rankings for what I know are popular search terms, but I'm not seeing as much traffic as I should. My title tags are like "Blue Widgets" and I'm not using META descriptions at all. I guess the things to be concerned with as far as CTR are title tag, META description, and URL?

Considering tabbed browsing and bookmarking, I don't want to stand in the way of progress so I guess I'll go with "Widgets - WidgetStore.com".

Edit: Is it alright if a page's <p> description and META description are the same?

[edited by: Tonearm at 2:36 pm (utc) on July 6, 2007]

[Tastatura]

You might want to employ "call to action" methods in your title. Some starting references:

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

and use your favorite search engine to search for "Best Practices for Title Tags"

hth