- [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.