In the previous blog entry I explained how to know if your site is optimized…and that an easy way to know if your site is optimized is to look at the page titles.
That begs the question are the page titles done correctly? There are some very common mistakes…or indications that the page titles were not done by an expert or just slapped together. I’ll show you 3 examples.
1. Page titles that just have the page name and the company name are common and useless.
Example of Stingy/Useless Page Title: home – Full Orbit Web and Marketing or about – Full Orbit Web and Marketing
2. Stuffed keywords or 8 or more keywords in the page title cancel each other out or signal greediness to Google and valued less by Google.
Example of Stuffed Page Title: Internet Marketing, Web Design, Search Engine Optimization, Web Programming in the San Francisco Bay Area.
3. Keywords that don’t match the text on the page.
Say you put a keyword phrase on your page about sex but the page is about money. Google can tell if there is a mis-match and count it against you. Or your text is about “how to set up a bank account” but the page title is banking industry and the words “banking industry” never appears on the page. In this case there is a match in the topic but not in the exact wording. Not having an exact match diminishes but doesn’t cancel out the keywords.
These are simple and valuable things about keywords and page titles business people can learn without becoming search engine experts. Next I’ll explain how picking the right keywords works.