All language subtitles for 01 - Start with the page title for SEO

- [Instructor] Before we start implementing keywords,

there is an important feature that is sometimes overlooked,

yet it is the most viewed feature

in all of search engine optimization.

Go back to the search engine

and do a search for your company.

Find your result, and let's take a look at it

as there is a wealth of information to be learned here.

Next, open the page that the result links to

in another browser window or tab.

The first thing to notice

is the heading of the search result.

Welcome to Explore California.

This is typically the big blue text link

in the search results.

If you've clicked on it, it's a different color.

Now, this is what will be seen and read

by almost anyone who sees your link in the search results.

The words in that link comes from the content on your page,

specifically, the title tag.

If you look at the tab or window with your website,

the page title appears in the tab.

Now the page title is under your control.

You can most likely edit it

in your website management program.

Or to get even more geeky,

here's the code of the page.

And we'll use that to see the other elements as well.

As you can see, the page title is in the Title tag.

Tags are the instructions in the brackets.

Now just looking at the overall context.

This tells us that the page title

is fairly high in importance

in relation to the content and the rest of the page.

Why?

Because the page title is used

in the big blue text in the search results.

It is the first marketing message a searcher will read

about your company and your content.

This is where you present your company

and its relevance to the searcher.

Now, there are a number of ways

to approach writing a good page title.

Many people say to use as many keywords

in the page title as possible.

Others recommend being highly descriptive.

There's a lot of advice out there.

And the key is to see what works for you.

I'm going to give you a few of the guidelines

and observations that I've found over the years.

First, some recommend to simply list keywords,

one right after another,

using a comma or a bar between the words.

And I don't recommend that strategy.

You'll see it employed often in search results.

And the reason I don't like it

is because of readability.

It is harder to read a series of words

than to read a structured sentence.

We process sentences faster than series of words

because of the context.

And I believe that context makes a sentence faster to read

and actually communicates more information

than a series of words.

Next, the length of the page title.

While you can write a page title

almost as long as you want,

it's going to cut off around 50 to 60 characters.

Visibility, and again, readability are important.

Sometimes, I found that shorter titles

are better in terms of rankings and clicks.

Finally, use your primary keyword

as the first or second word.

Think about how fast you can scan a search result page.

Most attention anyone gives to the page

is scanning the first word or two in each page title.

If you look at what your competitors are doing,

you'll see a variety of tactics.

But remember, just because you see

tactics being used in the result

does not mean they're effective

in getting the click or ultimately getting the sale.