Optimizing Your Web Page Title for Search Engine Relevancy and Higher Search Engine Rankings.

(Ever hear, "Write for your audience?" Well a catchy title for a human eye will not fare as well as a well written title for a search engine...)

You took the time to visit this page and, if your web site is important to you, I ask that you print this out, and take the time to read this, with out being rushed. Some of the ideas may benefit your site. Thank you.

Give your web page the "Wu-Wu" it needs to obtain a higher search engine ranking.

Just "showing up" on the Internet with your own web page, doesn't translate to being successful. A productive Internet presence requires several key elements. If any are missing or deficient you will find a web site owner stating…

"I built it, they didn't come." 

You have built, or paid someone, to build your web site. Your page has snazzy colors, catchy titles, even a couple of very nice icons, but the number of visitors to your site isn't very high, and "sales" are even worse. "What is wrong?" you ask, and after thinking about it for a while, as you gaze (lovingly) at your beautiful site, you simply conclude, "The Internet really doesn't work." After all, you have a great site, why wouldn't people want to come?

Good analysis of problem -- determining there is something wrong, but you have reached an incorrect conclusion. You need to have access to a few secrets like…

THERE ARE TWO CRITICAL DESIGN ELEMENTS TO EVERY WELL-DESIGNED WEB PAGE

What many people don't realize is that there are two essential designs to every properly functioning web page. First, the art and visual components, which is the work that everybody sees when they visit your site. And second, the web structure and underlying layout that supports your visual design, and more importantly, allows your Internet visitors to find you, via search engines. This structural component is not entirely visible, as much of it lies in the coding of your web sites language (HTML).

Your visual element is what makes your Internet presence unique, it is what conveys the image you are attempting to communicate to your current and future clients. You have spent a great deal of time, and money, creating the perfect site for your product or service; but probably haven't spent much time ensuring your web page is found. Here is an important tip: every visual web design requires strong structural design features. OR, more succinctly put…

You don't want to build a Corvette 
and then place it on a Yugo body.

Before we address the structural elements, let's quickly review how people find your web page…

SEARCH ENGINES - THE 'YELLOW PAGES' 
OF THE INTERNET

Once you have created your site, you need a method to communicate what you do and where you are. This is where search engines come into play. Search engines are the yellow pages of the Internet. There are 7-10 major "engines" including: Yahoo, Excite,  AltaVista, HotBot, Northern Light, Web Crawler and Lycos.

What makes search engines powerful is that Internet users can go to the search engine site, type in a few key words, and the search engine will produce a list of web pages that most closely match the keywords searched -- hopefully yours. (Latest statistics indicate that 86% of web page owners claim that search engines are the primary means that caused a viewer to find their site.)

The great news is that the search engines are FREE to list your web page and they are FREE for the Internet viewers to use. The bad news is that there are now 140,000+, oops now 170,000, new web domains every month (that is up 40,000/month from January 1998). That is two and a half-new domains every minute, every day, competing against your site. As you may conclude, achieving and retaining a highly ranked site is going get a bit more difficult. 

If you do a search at www.infoseek.com for the broad title of your business (life insurance, books, computer software etc.), Infoseek will return the number of web pages that contain the generic phrase which you searched.

Take for example, the term "long distance." Last time I checked Infoseek, there were approximately 5 MILLION PAGES with the word "long distance" on them. Guess what, every one of those people think that their page is so unique, so special, so wonderful (hey, that is my page...) that they should at least be ranked in the top 20 of a search for "long distance." Do the math; 20/5,000,000 yields a 0.000004 chance that you would be listed in the top 20 if all pages were equal. All pages are not equal.

Now back to your site: once created, you visit each search engine and "register" your web page. The search engine then visits (spiders) your site and indexes the information from your site, so it will "know" what your site is about.

What can you do?

It is critical to properly optimize the STRUCTURE of your web site for maximizing search engine relevancy. If you do not optimize your site, you have that beautiful Corvette sitting there without any gas, or worse yet, putting diesel fuel into a gas system.

Herein lies the problem. The search engines don't look at your beautiful design, the ways you have carefully organized each of your products, the "marketing" specials (15% discount for all Internet orders) or even the attractive man or woman you have holding your product, with the great smile just saying, "Buy me." People look at these items, but search engines don't. Search engines look at the way your page is written, the underlying HTML text used to create your page; they look at the structure of your site. This leads us back to…

THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF YOUR WEB SITE.

In order to get your web page found, you have to create a structure that the search engines can read and understand. There are several keys to accomplishing this: the title, meta tags, description and content.

Each search engine has its' own algorithm for analyzing these components. The better you design the underlying structure, the higher ranking your page will receive when someone searches for your product or service. It is literally the difference between being ranked number 2,434 versus being ranked number 12 on the search engine results page. I don't believe many people will make it much past number 50, let alone where your ranking at 2,434 is currently residing. (Oh, did I mention there are 100,000, no 140,000, oh, now I mean 170,000 new web domains EVERY month?) Another helpful tip is about how to write your…

TITLES. A GREAT PLACE TO PLACE KEYWORDS

Let's examine the "title" component of the structural design. An example might be an insurance broker's site.

The title might read

"Welcome to Optimal Insurance."

(When the Internet visitor arrives, they are greeted by a friendly title indeed.) One slight problem, no one will ever arrive via a search engine that weighs titles into the engine algorithm. An Internet user, if they don't know the name of your company, won't search for "Optimal" and they certainly won't search "Welcome."

The word "insurance" MAY be searched, so we have one possible keyword out of four words. Applying just a bit of wizardry might produce a slightly better title such as

"Insurance: Long term disability, casualty, health and medical, life and property for your business or residential needs. "

The net effect is that our title has 10 commonly searched keyword/phrases.

Now, which site do you think will rank higher for relevancy against key words searched?

Contact us to see how we can help create or enhance your internet presence.

OUR SERVICES TO YOU

We offer a wide range of Internet design, creation and management services from:

• Internet Presence Creation (How much for that page in the (browser) window?)
• Design Composition and Optimization
• (Please note that our web site, is sorta' like the cobblers children, who have no shoes... we have been so busy on projects, we have struggled to get all of our content up-loaded.)
• Structural Architecture Composition and Optimization
• Content Composition and Optimization
• Meta Tag Keyword Composition and Optimization
• Web Page Title Composition and Optimization
• Image Description Composition and Optimization
• Meta Descriptions Composition and Optimization
• Keyword and Content Correlation (tying it all together with a bow)

By the way, we are looking to affiliate with competent, fun, talented, creative, honest, (well, you get the idea) individuals who may want to work with us. If you think we could some how, some way make a good match, or gosh -- even good friends, e-mail me and we can discuss this option. Thanks!