The HTML tag – Title – is so important for search engine optimization that we feel it merits its own blog post. According to search engine experts, using keywords in a well-crafted Title tag is one of the most important factors for both:

1. Getting a site to rank accurately and prominently in search engine results, and
2. Getting the user to choose your website from the search engine results page.

What Are Page Titles?
The Page Title is the content within the Title tag on an HTML page. Each page of a website has its own Title tag.

You can see what a page title is by looking at the (blue in Windows) bar in the browser window. In the browser Internet Explorer, for example, the title will be Page Title Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Another way to see the title is to select View -> Source from the menu. Towards the top of the page you will see the HTML title tags surrounding the actual title:

<title>A Web Marketing Blog & SEO, Email Marketing,… Stephan Spencer’s Scatterings</title>

Here is how the webpage associated with this Title tag appears on Google’s search results page:

Because Google accounts for the majority of total Internet search traffic, we think that tailoring Title tags to Google is very important.
(The search term we used was web marketing blog.)

How to Write Page Titles
Each page should have a unique Title tag that describes its content, similar to the title of a newspaper article, i.e., something that makes the user want to click on your site’s link. Good webpage titles incorporate the following factors:

Accurately Describe the Pages Content
Write a title for each page on your site that accurately describes the content of that particular page. The search engines may discount a page whose title does not reflect the content on the page. Also, making a Title that is pleasant and informative for human readers will increase the likelihood that human readers will choose your site.

Writing an individual Title for each page of a site is labor intensive so many sites do not do this, which means that sites that contain accurate titles for each individual page have a key advantage.

Use Keywords
Whenever practical, use keywords. Keyword research indicates which keywords are more important for a site. However, it is more important that the Title should accurately describe the pages contents – with or without keywords.

Place Important Words Early in the Title
Search engines and people seem to believe that links that most directly reflect what they’’ve searched for are the most relevant. So it makes sense to put what search engines and people are looking for first this makes finding easier for them. Both are trying to find specific information.

The tendency is to always have a company name, followed by the real page title. This is usually counterproductive, since the user is probably not looking for a company name. For example, think about newspaper articles. They do not typically contain the name of the publication, as in

New York Times: Wayward Humpback Pair Moves Toward Ocean

In our first example, the website actually is a web marketing blog, and that’s what the website owner puts first in the Title, and the title of the site, Stephan Spencers Scatterings, appears at the end of the Title.

Formatting the Title Tag
It’s a good idea to capitalize most of the words in the title to give it more urgency.

Also, remember that Google only displays the first 66 characters of the Title tag.

The questions you're probably asking yourself are “what is a keyword analysis?” and “why should I do one?”. A keyword analysis will determine what the most effective words or phrases are for your web content and keyword advertising. By effective, I mean “most likely to lead to conversion”, be that a sale, a phone call or a newsletter subscription. The value in using effective keywords is it can increase the probability of your website being found in Search Engine search results, and it can increase recognition and credibility in your visitors' eyes.

Here's a real life example to illustrate this point. A client of mine had a product which he called an electronic scarecrow, which was searched for approximately zero times per day. We changed how the product was described to electronic bird control and now that is the keyword his site is most often found under. Also, a visitor to his site will take less time to understand what he is selling - product recognition will be improved.

There are three parts to a keyword analysis:

A. Discovering the keywords
B. Evaluating the keywords
C. Using the keywords

By the way, when I say keywords I really mean key phrases, as in what a searcher would type into a search box. Even though they are usually phrases of two or more words, they are usually referred to as keywords.

A. DISCOVERING KEYWORDS

1. Draw up an initial list
There will be quite a few “obvious” keywords you and your colleagues can simply come up with

2. Look at your referral logs
If you've already have had your site up for some time, looking at how people find you already is an invaluable resource. If you don't know how to see your traffic logs, ask your web hosting company. If they don't know either, switch web hosting companies! Also check out Google Analytics for a powerful and free way to access this information.

A real life keyword referral log snippet from a yoga blog

3. Look at competitors' metatags
Go to your competitors' sites look at the source code of some of their pages (select View-> Source from the browser's menu bar). The tag should be near the top of the page, and see if you can find useful keyword ideas (thanks Peter Kent for the tip).
Also don't stop at the metatags, look at the pages themselves, and observe which words and phrases are used in the titles, headings and text.

4. Use Overture.com's tool
Overture.com (bought by Yahoo!) has an invaluable free Keyword Selector Tool which gives you alternate suggestions for searches. For example, a search for homeopathy will list homeopathy medicine, homeopathy remedy, abc homeopathy and homeopathy training as the most popular searches.

UPDATE 2/19/07: Overture's tool has become increasingly unreliable. Google has introduced a Keyword Tool which used to be available only to AdWord accounts, but it is now free for all to use and has become an essential part of our own keyword analysis here at no diamonds:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

5. Refine list
There are several ways to add to your list, especially for your top ten keywords:
- spelling mistakes (calender)
- synonyms (home - house)
- singulars and plurals (shoe vs shoes)
- hyphenation (ecommerce vs e-commerce)
- geographic add-ons (palo alto doctor)

Now you should have a list of at least 10 keywords and maybe more than 100. Try to order them by importance to your site.

B. EVALUATING KEYWORDS

1. Search Popularity
WordTracker is the most popular fee-based online keyword research tool (about $8 per day or $250 per year). It will give you estimates of the number of searches performed for each keyword across all Search Engines, and will tell you how many sites appear in the search results giving you an idea of the competition. The site DigitalPoint.com allows you to use Wordtracker and Overture for free, but only for one keyword at a time.

Another good tool is SEObookwhich aggregates results from Overture, Wordtracker and more.

These will help you determine the relative popularity of search terms.

Here is a useful list of free online resources for keyword analysis from WebSiteTips.com.

2. Historical Trends
Google Trends shows you how up to five keywords rate against each other over time. This tool will give you an insight over the relative popularity of terms and highlight seasonality. Valentine's Day searches peak in February for example.

Google Trends can highlight seasonality in searches, as well as relative popularity

3. Focusing
Now that you know more about your keywords, eliminate the ones that are too general and the ones that are too specific. That is difficult to define exactly, but an example would be that solar is too general, solar power home installation is too specific, and solar power installation may be just right.

C. USING KEYWORDS

Now you should have a list of at least 10 keywords you have selected as most likely to provide targeted leads.

1. Place the keywords in your website (or if the terms below sound like foreign terms to you, get your webmaster to do it):
- Title Tag of every page
- MetaTags (not so important anymore)
- Headlines and Sub-headings
- Body Text
- Alt tags
- Title Attributes of hyperlinks
- File names and URLs

2. Start an AdWord Campaign
Having done this keyword analysis, you can use it as a basis for a Pay Per Click Google AdWord campaign. The finer details of that will be for another post!

Google continues to gain market share over the other Search Engines. Here are the latest stats from a May 22 Comscore press release:
Total Internet Searches (April 2005) April 2006:

Google Sites (36.5%) 43.1%

Yahoo! Sites (30.7%) 28.0%

MSN Sites (16.1%) 13.2%

AOL- Time W (9.0%) 6.9%

Ask Network (6.1%) 5.8%

You can see the trend is positive for Google. On top of that, those numbers underplay Google's dominance:

• Google powers AOL Search, so you can add almost 7% to its market share right there bringing it to 50%
• Search Engine market share is based on the number of searches made (for example, Google served 2.9 billion searches in May vs. Yahoo's 1.9 billion). This is different from referral traffic from Search Engines, where Google ranks above 60%)
• Google Pay Per Click market share for AdWords is greater than 70%
• In most other countries other than the USA (with the notable exception of China), Google has a much bigger market share

So the mantra goes thus: if you optimize or advertise, do it with Google and you will rise

This year local search is really taking off:

So, the question is, how do local searchers search?

For shoes they type “Kansas City Shocks” or “Omaha shoes”
For an accountant it's “Chicago west suburb accountant”
For computer programming it's “Idaho .Net programmer”

That's the reality of search on the local level and the search engines get it and are rushing in to be the big players in the local directory game and deliver search results all around town instead of just around the world..

This is from Duct Tape Marketing, who is offering a new service to submit to the many local Search Engines. Here's the handy list of the main local Search Engines' submittal pages:

Google Local - https://www.google.com/local/add/login?hl=en_US
Yahoo Local - http://listings.local.yahoo.com/
Super Pages - http://www.superpages.com/about/new_chg_listing.html
City Search - https://selfenroll.citysearch.com/
True Local - http://www.truelocal.com/getlisted.aspx
SwitchBoard -
http://www.switchboard.com/cobrands/sb/help_yp.asp#YP31
YellowPages.com -
http://www.yellowpages.com/sp/contact/update.jsp
Local.com - http://www.local.com/partner.htm
Insider Pages - http://www.insiderpages.com/
Judy’s Book - http://www.judysbook.com/merchant/

Peter Kent is the author of Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, a book I highly recommend because apart from being a goldmine of information on Search Engines, it is well written with a lot of humor, and the opposite of dry and powerpointy.

not just for dummies

The phrase Internet marketing often conjures just 2 forms of it: Search Engine Opitmization and AdWords. Hidden within Peter's consulting website is a Powerpoint presentation with a list of 33 ways to promote a website. Here it is; I have divided it by online and offline categories:

Online ways to promote your website:

- Search Engine Optimization
- Pay Per Click / AdWords
- Banner Advertising
- Trusted Feeds
- Build it and they will come

no wonder he has a great sense of humor, he is British

- Directory Registration (Including Specialty Directories)
- Link Placement
- Reciprocal Linking
- Local Directories
- Selling on eBay
- Shopping Directories
- Blogs – Your Own
- Blogs – Other People’s
- Affiliate Programs
- Coupon, Discount, &amp; Freebie Sites
- E-mail Newsletters – Your Own
- E-mail Newsletters – Other People’s
- E-mail “Bulletins”
- “Giveaways” on Other People’s Sites
- Content Syndication
- Product Syndication (wallpaper, utilities)
- Browser Toolbars
- Viral Marketing
- Specialty Directories (e.g., Knowledgestorm)

Offline ways to promote your website:

- Advertise Through Existing Offline Ads
- Dedicated Offline Advertising Campaigns
- Push People to the Site from Your Brick-and-Mortar Store
- Offline PR
- Yellow Pages
- Direct Mail
- Community Marketing
- Offline Promotional Tie-Ins
- Customer Referrals
- In-Package Promotions

Google introduces new services weekly these days, but they have not changed the basic form of their search results in a while. Yesterday I noticed some subtle improvements in the search results. I was looking for the Caltrain schedule, and typed in caltrain for my search. This was the result:

that small Schedules &amp; Fares link at the bottom can save you a lot of time

At the bottom of the descritpion of the result were 4 links I had never sen before on Google: Stations - Schedules &amp; Fares - Fares &amp; Tickets - System Map. They linked directly to the inside pages of the site, saving me time in having to go to the Caltrain homepage looking for the schedule. Does anyone know how this is done technologically?

Here is another cool improvement. I needed to know whether this coming Monday was a holiday in the UK, so I searched for uk bank holiday calendar. Here were my results:

yes, I should have included “2005″ in my search - thanks Google

After the 4 first search results there is a line, and under it the phrase in red text See results for: uk bank holiday calendar 2005. The first link under the line gives me the information I was looking for, unlike my own search results. How do you do it, Google?

Back in March '05 I wrote an entry about the 3 most important Search Engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN. The gist of the piece was that you should not put any effort ranking in any other Search Engine - concentrate your efforts on the big 3.

This morning the New York Times had an article about the latest Search Engine market share:

Google 59.5%
Yahoo 28.5%
MSN 5.5%
Ask 3.3%

Google's dominance is getting more pronounced.

the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA

I attended a workshop last night with that title at the impressive International School of The Peninsula (it made me want to send my kids there).

It was organized by Silicon French, a “network of francophile professionals”. Some of the panelists were:

D Laury

Daniel Laury, co-founder, President and CEO - LSF Network
Kevin Wilk, Director of Strategic Alliances - Overture

It was moderated by Angelique Blenstrup, Principal – Blendstrup and Associates

Kevin the Overture chap (the online marketing arm of Yahoo!) had some interesting statistics:
- 3 years ago paid keywords accounted for 5% of internet advertising spending, now it's 40%
- $10 billion are spent yearly on internet advertising in the USA, and it's growing at more than 10%
- about 35% of conversions (to buy) occur more than 30 days after a user's first visit, but few sites track their visitors after that period so miss out on important data

Daniel's company is a Bay area “expert in precision marketing”, and they've teamed up with a Hyderabad-based company which does Search Engine Optimization. One reason the relationship works so well is that the adword campaigns they manage can run up to tens of thousands of keywords. India's inexpensive and educated workforce can help sort through those massive numbers.

The evening's highlight for me was one of the panelists describing how they often create individual landing pages to cater for keywords. For example, a dating service catering for the “San Francisco French speaking” hopefuls would have its own page tailor made with those particular keywords. It makes sense, since the keywords are more likely to be cheap and the users who click through get exactly what they were looking for.

Towards the end of the workshop, I asked them if they ever used blogs to increase their clients' rankings, and they unanimously answered no, because “the technology is too new and we don't understand enough about its effect on Search Engine rankings.” Hmm…

Google seems to be coming out with a great new service every week. Here are 3 you should try out:

Google Desktop Search: Not only does it enable you to search your files on your computer fast and efficiently (much better than the native XP search), but I have found it most useful in searching through my browser's history, which makes it easy to locate a page I visited 3 months but remember just 2 or 3 words from. It even keeps a thumbnail of every single webpage you ever look at.

Google Suggest: As you type your search query, Google fills in suggestions of the most common related searches. It helps you improve and narrow your search terms, as well as acting as a live spell checker. You can see it in action here:

Google Suggest in action

Google Alerts: Allows subscription to search terms for news or web pages as they appear. Google sends you an email whenever a new page includes your search term. It's great to keep abreast of developments in a particular field, or for the vainer ones amongst us to keep track of what is said about you (by subscribing to an alert for “your name” - use the quotes).

And as a bonus, if you have broadband access, try out Google Accelerator when the time is right. Rumor has it that it speeds up web surfing, but they've ran out of capacity so I have not been able to test it out.

The other night I went to a fascinating panel discussion at the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center, famous for the mouse and other technological breakthroughs) hosted by BayCHI. There were 5 panelists, representing the cream of today's Search Engines (conspicuously absent was MSN):

Peter Norvig, Director of Search Quality at Google
Ken Norton, Director of Product Management at Yahoo (UPDATE: he joined JotSpot in May '05)
Mark Fletcher, Ask Jeeves' Bloglines Founder
Udi Manber, Amazon's A9 CEO
Jakob Nielsen, Usability guru extraordinaire from Useit.com

Peter Norvig

Mark Fletcher

Udi Manber

Jakob Nielsen

The first part was Show &amp; Tell, where each participant had the floor for 5 minutes.

Peter Norvig showcased Google's latest innovations, like Q &amp; A which returns facts above the search results (example: what is the population of Japan?), search and maps by SMS on cellphones, Google Satellite, Suggest and Desktop Search ( all of which I use all the time and highly recommend).

Ken Norton emphasized that Yahoo is interested not only in people finding results, but in sharing and using them. In contrast with Google, he mentioned mostly products in beta like MyYahoo Search, video search , desktop search and Y!Q. Basically, what you can find on next.yahoo.com.

Mark Fletcher's take was that the fastest growing segment of the internet is blog content (hear hear!), and so his service Bloglines is an integral part of that. He also talked about subscribe to future search which alerts you when content containing your search keywords is published.

Udi Manler spent his 5 minutes talking about the process of taking 28 million images of 20 cities to map city blocks in their A9 search engine.

Jakob Nielsen loves numbers, and his time was spent mainly on interesting statistics. In 1994, 81% of searchers used 1 word queries, and 14% 2 words. In 2004, 36% use 1 word and 36% 2 words. He inferred that users are getting more sophisticated. The search success rate is now (2005) 42%, with low experience users scoring 32% and high experience 50%.

Another point made by Jakob was that intranet search engines were miserable failures, with only 33% success rates.

Show and Tell was followed by Q &amp; A, and here's a summary from a blog post of LukeW:

- We are faced with more information (overload) each day [...] BlogLines indexes 1.6 million blog entries a day. This makes information about information increasingly important.

- There’s a lack of context around search queries (esp. social context). Information about information (beyond prioritized relevancy) on the search results page could introduce much-needed context for users.

- Consumer needs are increasingly being better met by “vertical” search functionality (products, local, travel, multimedia, personal, etc.).

- Search queries are becoming more focused on the “long tail” of information. Ask Jeeves has a continually increasing number of unique queries per day.

Adding to this list:

- There is a move away from early-Yahoo style directories, since search result are becoming more relevant.

- Search has failed in not allowing a dialogue such as you would have with a librarian for example. The search box is a command line interface.

- Search engines leach the value out of the internet through their paid ads (that was Jakob).

All in all, the most impressive panelist was Udi Manber, who always had a big picture answer to questions and the most interesting answers.

To sum up, it gave me the impression that there are big changes happening in Internet search, after the relative calm of Google domination of the past few years. If PARC hosts another panel next year, it's likely the participants and content will be very different (apart from Google's presence).