How to Write a Compelling Web Page Title

by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson
Web Marketing Today, Issue 40, January 1, 1998

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Would you judge a book by its cover? Yes. By its title? Of course. In the same way, you must develop an engaging title for each page in your company's website, if you expect people from a search engine to pay you a visit. The title, which is found at the very top of your Web page between <TITLE> tags, will show up as a hyperlink on AltaVista, Yahoo, Infoseek, WebCrawler, HotBot, and Excite. Which of these titles would make you want to click on the page?

1.  
2. Page Four
3. Products
4. Horseshoe Nail Co.
5. Products - Horseshoe Nail Co.
6. Stay-Grip Nails - Horseshoe Nail Co.
7. Get Rich and Earn $$$ Selling Stay-Grip Horseshoe Nails!!!!
8. Stay-Grip Nails Protect Horses' Feet from Throwing a Horseshoe
9. Five Ways to Keep Your Horse from Throwing a Horseshoe

Options 1 through 4 don't help much, but I include them because I see a great many Web pages with little or no title. Option 5 isn't very compelling. It doesn't even tell you what the products are. Option 6 ads the name of the product and little else. Notice that both of these would come up if you were searching for horse, horseshoe, and nail. No one would search for Stay-Grip unless the brand were well known. Option 7 insults your intelligence. Don't even think about doing this! (One of my e-mail filters automatically trashes e-mail that uses either "$$$" or "!!!".)

Option 8 is longer and provides more keywords in the title. If I had a horse with a foot problem I might search on "foot, feet, horse, horseshoe." In general, longer is better; just make it clear and concise. When you write a META description tag you don't need to repeat the same words you included in the title. Option 9 looks informational rather than sales oriented, and may well attract more hits than Option 8.

Do a search for your product and see what titles come up. Which seem most compelling to you? My most-read article also has the longest title: "12 Web Page Design Decisions Your Organization or Business Will Need to Make" (http://www.wilsonweb.com/articles/12design.htm). The title leaves you wanting to see if you might have missed any important decisions. It's provocative, and it includes several important keywords.

The time you spend on writing careful titles will richly reward you in increased hits from search engines.