Your Title Meta Tag Should Be Your Very First Meta Tag

Your title meta tag is the most important tag in your html and should always be first. Why? because it’s the first thing you want the search engines to read when they visit your site.

As I’ve mentioned before, search engine optimization is about the details. There is no “home run” in SEO. There are a few other things you should watch out for.

If someone else designed your website for you, check the html to make certain the title meta tag is first, followed by the Description meta tag and the Keywords meta tag. If you use a WYSIWYG editor to design your website, check to make certain it doesn’t stick other tags ahead of your title tag. Some of the WYSIWYG editors don’t put the tags in correctly and you must go in and edit them by hand. Also check to make certain they aren’t putting other “notes” or “messages” ahead of your meta tags.

Keep it short and sweet

Try to keep your all your meta tags as short as possible because the search engines only show a limited number of characters and if your tag is too long, it gets cut off. As a guideline, Yahoo is the worst. Yahoo limits your title to five words or 40 characters. However, you also want to get as much information in that tag as possible.

How do I pack as much information in my title tag as possible?

First, don’t use the name of your firm. Unless you’re General Motors or Best Buy, it’s not likely you have the name recognition that people are searching for your firm by name. Use one of the keywords for that particlular page as the first or second word in your title. Some examples:

• Educational software for K-12
• Premium California wines at reasonable prices
• Minneapolis auto repair and body repair
• Compaq computers and laptops

If you want to learn more about what’s important in search engine optimization, follow the link.

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