{"id":6584,"date":"2015-10-02T08:23:34","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T08:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/?p=6584"},"modified":"2015-12-09T12:48:24","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T12:48:24","slug":"web-page-titles-for-seo-and-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dental-media.co.uk\/marketing\/advice\/web-page-titles-for-seo-and-users\/","title":{"rendered":"Website page titles"},"content":{"rendered":"

An important web page element worthy of your attention. Optimise for Google and users too!<\/h2>\n

I was recently approached by a dentist to perform a website performance audit where the site concerned had been live for around 5 months but was failing to bring in new patient enquiries. His dental design partner had provided assurances that all was well but closer inspection of the website showed up a number of significant content flaws which, collectively, were undermining the performance.<\/p>\n

I’ll cover each of the problem areas I uncovered in more detail over the next few weeks and how upgrading them made a substantial improvement to the site concerned. The first on-page design element we will discuss is the page title.<\/p>\n

How a poorly configured website page title can set you back in Google search<\/h3>\n

This is a simple page parameter and yet one of the most important to get right when it comes to configuring a web page for optimal Google performance. First off, let’s recap on what it actually is and then move on to how to configure it for best Google effect<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The web page title is the short descriptive text you see in the browser tab at the top of your page. This is also shown in the search results (at least where it hasn’t been automatically replaced by Google). You have up to 60 characters to use for the title but by keeping it to 55, you are guaranteed that your title will show correctly in the vast majority of applications. The title is important in that it provides a short summary of the page for the user and<\/span> for search engines.<\/p>\n

Optimising the page title<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

In the site audit we mentioned at the beginning of this article, the website titles had not been optimised at all. Even though 60 characters are effectively available for this, the site’s designer had used very few and in some cases just replicated the same title on several pages. For example, the home page title of the site just said “Home – xxxx Dental – Another WordPress Website” or words similar to that effect. For SEO, the title really needs to mention the main subject of the page and where relevant, the location of the business. Tests suggest that the main keywords should be placed closer to the start of the title although more recent moves to intelligent, semantic search at Google, indicate that keyword placement is now less important.<\/p>\n

So a suitable page title for an implant page for an example dentist based in York might be as follows:<\/p>\n

“Dental implants York at Smiling Dentist | Reliable teeth”<\/p>\n

Here we are including the key words early on, in conjunction with the dentist’s name and with a few additional words of supporting text. It takes a little bit of time and effort to configure these correctly but it is very important. When doing it, think of how the title will appear in the search results, if you’ve included your keywords and that you’ve optimised the use of the available characters. Because it’s not a particularly obvious thing to spot, i.e. not in the body content of the web page, lazy designers will often skimp on this task. Some even do this on purpose to encourage you to buy into their optimisation programmes later on when the site fails to rank.<\/p>\n

Does it help to cram in lots of keywords?<\/h3>\n

Sometimes we see this too, but the answer is a resounding “no”. Stuffing keywords into any page element is a red spam flag for Google and will likely result in a penalty and no ranking result.<\/p>\n

Reviewing page titles periodically<\/h3>\n

Page titles can make a big difference in search results and should be reviewed periodically as part of an ongoing SEO process. It’s always interesting to see how small adjustments can make quite a difference.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/h3>\n

Website page titles are important for users and for search engine optimisation. Diligent configuration can make a significant difference but many lazy designers unfortunately skimp the task. However, it’s easy enough to check by following the guidelines give above.<\/p>\n

If you’re worried about the performance of your website and would like an experienced second opinion, please call the Dental Media digital marketing team for no-obligation guidance on 01332 672548<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An important web page element worthy of your attention. Optimise for Google and users too! I was recently approached by a dentist to perform a website performance audit where the site concerned had been live for around 5 months but …<\/p>\n

Website page titles<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t