Improving Ranking: The Title Tag

With 2009 rapidly coming to a close, it’s time to start making plans for 2010. And what better way to do that than to talk about upcoming trends in Search Engine Optimization.

In the past, I’ve talked about how important it is for each Web page to have a unique, keyword-rich title to display on a search engine results page. That advice is still relevant, and will continue to be so in 2010. But I’m not talking about the “Title Meta Tag” that displays at the very top of your web browser. I’m talking about a different “Title Tag.”  This one contains text that pops up in a box when your mouse hovers over a particular word or image on a Web page.

This Title Tag gives you the opportunity to add a fuller, keyword-rich description of the image or word the title refers to.  Remember, the search engine spiders are pretty savvy.  They want to see unique content. So don’t repeat the same keywords in your title tag. Use slightly different words that still contain the meaning you want to get across to your visitor.

If you’re planning on revamping your Web site in the new year, keep title tags in mind. They can be a useful tool to enhance your search engine rankings!

Facebook Fan Page: A Cost Effective Tool for Your Business

Facebook’s growth as a social network has been phenomenal this year. 300 million active users and counting. But it’s not just individuals any more. More and more businesses have hopped on the Facebook bandwagon and are setting up Fan Pages.


Before you hop aboard, think about what you want to accomplish as a business owner. If you’re intention is to network with executives in certain target industries, you might want to consider using LinkedIn instead.


But if you want to reach out to potential customers, find out what they’re interested in, cultivate relationships, and best of all, not pay a dime to do it, then you should consider creating a Facebook fan page for your company. It’s not a hard process to get a fan page set up. You just need to select a category:

• Local
• Brand, Product or organization
• Artist, Band or Public Figure

Then, you need to give your page a name.  After that, it’s a matter of customizing it, as you would do with your own personal page.  You can provide links to your Website, include images, and background information about your company.

Now, you can start interacting with your audience. Start by inviting your current contacts to become fans. Then, start to conduct surveys, share important updates, hold contests, promote events you’re attending and include helpful resources.

The more useful information you provide, the more likely it will be that your fans will return, interact with you, and maybe even suggest your fan page to their connections. Don’t forget to take advantage of Facebox’s Fan Box widget either.  You can place this icon on your own Website to gain more fans and share your Facebook updates.

Remember – be careful what you post. Facebook frowns on spamming, Make sure you follow the social network’s Write-up on Warnings and Terms and Conditions.  You don’t want to accidentially misuse the site and have your content removed, or worse, your account disabled.

You might find it daunting trying to find the time to manage your Facebook fan page.  There are two ways to go about this. You can  dedicate 30 minutes a day to monitoring the page yourself or hire an administrator to review the site, and post new content to it.  As with any marketing strategy, the key to making your Facebook fan page successful is to be consistent.

Optimizing Websites: A Necessity

It still amazes me when I come across a marketing company that designs websites, but doesn’t optimize them for the search engines.


What is the point of designing a website that looks attractive and has excellent content describing a company’s product or service? Don’t you want to market your business to the widest possible audience?  I guess, if your business is making a ton of money already, you don’t have to. But how many companies can honestly say they’re in a position to turn away business, especially in this economy?

When you fail to optimize your site for the search engines, your company’s marketing department (or you, the owner, if you have a small business) will have to work that much harder to get the word out. Not to mention, why invest your hard-earned money on a website if you’re not going to maximize its potential?  Talk about squandering your ROI.
If you don’t optimize your website, there are only a few ways someone can find your website online:

• You get the website’s URL directly from someone at the company.
• You link to it from another company’s website.
• You link to it from a social media platform such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

Maybe that’s why some companies feel they don’t need to spend the money on optimizing their website. They think they can get the word out through social media. And they may be right, to an extent.  But optimizing your website doesn’t have to cost a fortune. In fact, you can find plenty of tips online to do this yourself.  At the very least, you should come up with unique, keyword-rich titles and descriptions for your web pages.  You don’t have to worry about coming up with a list of keywords for the meta tag, since the major search engines don’t use them anymore.


But if you don’t have the time or the inclination, hire someone to do it for you. If your web designer isn’t proficient, find an SEO specialist or ask your friends for a referral!

Why “Home” has no place as a website title

How many times have you searched on Google and found a listing where the title only said “Home Page” or “Home”? You have to look below the title to the description to discover the company’s name and/or its business. Why does this happen?

Most likely, it’s a lack of knowledge, time and/or money.
Companies that use “Home” or “Home Page” as the only title for their main landing page may not realize they are limiting their ability to attract new customers.
These firms may not have the budget to hire a web designer and/or a copywriter proficient in search engine optimization who would explain why it’s vital to have keywords in a title.
An SEO copywriter knows that web page titles and descriptions must contain keywords that people use to search for a particular product or service in order to attract the search engines and potential customers.

Some companies try to save money by creating their own sites, using a simple template provided by a website hosting company. But that decision may wind up costing them money, because the failure to include keywords means potential customers may not be able to find their site on Google.
A company that relies on “home page” for its title doesn’t provide any clues about its business. Someone searching online must rely on the description that is displayed on the search engine results page (SERP). But if there are no keywords in the description either, the chances of a site appearing among the first ten or even 20 listings are slim to none.

A few hosting companies won’t let you eliminate the word “Home” from the website’s title. But don’t let that stop you from adding keywords in a short description following the word “home.” If you can’t figure out how do it yourself, ask your hosting company’s technical support group to make the changes for you. And if they won’t do it, find someone else who will.

“Home” may be where the heart is, but your potential customers won’t go there, unless you give them a keyword to show the way.

Welcome or Not Welcome?

Putting “Welcome to (your) Company” on your website may have worked when the Internet was new, but that strategy can cost you sales and search engine rankings today. There’s a better way to attract customers: write benefit-oriented content.

There are millions of websites competing for attention. People are too busy to spend a lot of time reading content. They want to know right away if your site is going to help them.
Instead of literally “welcoming” people to your site – get right to the point, with content that convinces a visitor to stick around, explore your site, and do business with you. Make sure you’ve got a headline that clearly communicates the benefits your product or service offers to a potential customer. You’ve only got about 3-5 seconds to make an impression. Use words that count!
Some companies still put “Welcome” in their title tags as well. This won’t help you with search engine optimization. In fact, it may do the opposite.

Search engines are looking for content. Your title tag should provide specific information about what your company does, with keywords people use to search for your business. And you only have a limited number of characters to get that point across. If your title is too long, the search engines cut it off and replace the extra words with an ellipsis. If you want to communicate more information about your business, use the description meta tag instead.

Welcoming visitors to your site may be polite, but it’s just not necessary. Use your precious title tag and landing page space for clear, concise, benefit-oriented copy. That’s the way to ensure good search engine rankings and higher conversion rates.

How to Attract Visitors to Your Website and Convert Them into Customers

Ever wonder why some companies seem to struggle online, while others rank high on Google and make money hand over fist?

If all things are equal between two companies in the same industry – the difference probably lies with the firms’ websites. Odds are the successful company has a user-friendly site that features a customer-benefit headline so a visitor can quickly see what that company has to offer.

Write content for your site that quickly conveys the benefits your company provides to potential customers.
You only have about 3-5 seconds to make an impression online. If you don’t have an attention-grabbing headline on the home page – your visitor will hit the back button and do business with someone else.

Once you grab that visitor’s attention, keep it by writing copy in a conversational style. Make your paragraphs short and to the point. Emphasize the benefits of your product or service, not just its features. People buy because they want to, not necessarily because they need to.
Of course, if you are in the B2B market, features are important.  A person shopping for a new copier for their business wants to know if the machine can handle small or big jobs, whether it can print in color or just black and white, and the printing speed.  But don’t neglect the benefits here either. If a particular copier will make his job easier, and doesn’t cost his company a fortune, those are important benefits to note in your copy.

Include keywords in your website content.
Keywords are words and phrases people use to search for a particular product or service. If you want your website to be found by the search engines, the content on your site must include these keywords.
To ensure the search engines find your site, keywords also need to be included in the title and description meta tags found in the source code.  The title and description are displayed on the search engine results page. If you don’t specify this information in your source code, Google and the other search engines will pick out information from your site and display whatever it wants.  Creating unique titles and descriptions for each page of your website, and including carefully selected keywords in them, enables you to control the content displayed.

How do you find these keywords? Google is a good place to start. The popular search engine has its own keyword tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. This tool helps you see which keywords are used frequently and which are not. Two other excellent sources are KeywordDiscovery.com and Wordtracker.com. These are subscription services, but they do offer free trials.

The key to effective website design is keeping your customers’ needs in mind.
Provide solutions in clear, concise language and include appropriate keywords for the search engines to find. When you take these steps, you’ll convert website traffic into paying customers. That’s a return on investment your business can appreciate, in any economy.