Web Site mistakes using the Title Tag

This has to be “THE” biggest mistake I see or maybe it is the mistake that bugs me the most.

This mistake happens literally over millions of times on the internet.

What is this major mistake I see website owners make? It’spoor use of or not using your web page title.

The Web page title is what is displayed in the upper left corner of your web browser application.

For example if you are using Internet Explorer or Firefox and visit the webiste 50biggestwebsitemistakes.com you will see at the very top of your browser window the icon for the application the words “50 Biggest Website Mistakes and then – Internet Explorer or – Firefox. That is the title of that web site.

I know to many that seems trival but fact has it thet title of your web site is the first thing most search engines look at or spider when they come to your web page.

Earlier I mentioned this happens millions of times on the internet, want proof of that fact?

Here is a little experiment I have the participants of my workshops try while attending. Open up your favorite web browser. Go to the URL Google.com or Yahoo.com (your choice) in the search box enter “untitled document” and click the search button.

At the time I wrote this my results came back with 33,200,000 listings. Untitled Document is the default page name for Adobe Dreamweavers web page application. Microsoft Front Page uses “New Page” so you could imagine you would find a lot of results for that as well.

Another example is try the same experiment but use the words “Welcome to” you’ll find about 514 million results as well. Not that there is anything wrong with welcoming people to your website but if you are trying to get found, wouldn’t you want to make sure you use every possible advantage you can?

You are probably thinking, “How do I fix this?”

What I recommend, if you’re doing this yourself (instead of having your webmaster fix it) is to download your web page from your web site so that you have the current version. If you are unsure about doing this hire a web master, read up on using FTP or visit easywebcourse.com. Open up the page in your favorite web page editing software. (You can do this in notepad as well.)

At the top of the page in code view you will see <title>Untitled Document</title> (or something like that). Replace what is there with the desired title, prefereable something that is keyword rich for your product or niche, and then upload that page to your website. Be sure to checkin it in your web browser to be sure it displays properly. Finally test it to see what works best.

until next time, I wish you all the best and much success!

Frank Deardurff – That One Web Guy!