While title tag optimization is the daily bread of every SEO, for these people, like

1. software vendors
2. content creators
3. business leaders

title tags appear to be completely random and negligible. They assume that

title tags won’t be even really seen by the average user so why bother with them at all?

They forget that title tags get displayed in search results on Google and elsewhere and that it’s still one of the most important ranking factors for Google.

Also it’s not just one ranking factor.

There at least around 30 signals from the title tag alone if you ask me. Thus I decided to list what I perceive to be the 40 title tag SEO for Google ranking factors and optimization techniques plus resources every website owner should consider. Many are common sense by now, others will be new to some people. Also I added some factors I personally assume to count on Google. I have no objective proof for those but i hope some people will provide their own opinion on them.

Not all title tag optimization techniques are ranking factors for Google but they need to be implemented as well in a thorough on-site SEO campaign.

• Exact Match (of search query) – When you’re tile tag matches the search query exactly than it’s 100% relevant for it. Example: searching for [seo news] without bracktes would match a page with SEO News as a title tag. Nothing more or less.
  
• Keyword Order – On Google it’s first come, first serve. The fisrt word in the title tag is most relevant. So in case you want to rank for [seo news] you better write “SEO News” in your title tag and not “News SEO”.
  
• Keywords vs Keyphrases – As we have seen in the examples above we in most cases attempt to rank for keyphrases containing two or more terms not single word keywords. You won’t rank for [seo] or [news] easily anyways unless you are Wikipedia or CNN so you better target keyphrases not just keywords.
• Collocations and Compounds – Many keyphrases or just phrases for the sake of SEO but mny others are aleady a combination linguistically. Many of them are not yet phrases but they are collocations (two or more words often used together) or compounds (one term consisting of two or more words). In English it is often difficult to find out whether you are using a collocation or a compound but in other languages it is. “Blue sky” is a collocation but “skyscraper” is a compound. Here you can spot it easily because it’s one word. Google users are often looking for compounds and collocations. So you want to write “blue sky” in your title to rank for it instead of “blue, sky”.
  
• Modifiers (like “cheap” or buy) – There are comon modifiers many searchers look for. In case you have an e-commerce website you certainly have users who are seeking “cheap [insert your product here]” or “buy [insert your product here]“. Google also tries to extract the motivation from such queries. A search like [seo wikipedia] is different than [cheap seo] or [seo.com]. Depending on the query Google will attempt to find the right kind of website. So when you sell something you better add the appropriate modifier.
  
• Length (70 characters) – Google will only show 70 characters in its search results page (SERP) so you want to make sure that most important stuff is at the beginning while the brand is at the end. This item has been suggested by @SorbetDigital
• Stop Words – Stop words are words that get ignored by Google, or are not useful in the title tag and search results itself in most cases. “And” is such a word. The less of them the better but some people really search for phrases containing stop words. In these cases you may rank better when you actually use one. SEO UK is not the same as SEO in the UK.
  
• Numbers – Numbers, that is digits, not written numbers are quite popular on the Web these days, especially on social media. The top 10 ays to do something ar ebetter than just ways to do it. When it comes to search though most people don’ts use numbers or digits. On th eother hand you’re click through rate (CTR) might still depend on the numbers contained in your title tag. Would you preref 10, 30 or 101 ways to do something? It depends on context but in many cases you will go for the higher number as a searcher.
  

• Hyphens – While in English people don’t use as many hyphens as for instance in German uisng a hyphen is a good way to rank for different keyphrases while only adding it once. For instance sports-car in your title tag would be both recognized as [sports car] and [sportscar] in search results. While this works sometimes without the hyphen workaround in many cases you need to assist Google to rank for both versions of a keyphrase.
  
• Commas – Commas are not a good way to separate your keywords in the title tag. Google basically discounts commas as a useless list of keywords. A comma is not only a waste of space in your title tag it raises a red flag: Your title tag appears to be a victim of keyword stuffing, a searplurch engine spam “technique” from a decade ago.
  
• Pipes – Many people prefer to use pipes as separators these days, that is this here “|” as in “SEO|PPC”. A pipe has no particular meaning beyond just “separator”. This is both a pro as a con. Some SEO practitioners advise not to use them at all because otherwise you look like an SEO and get down-ranked for that. This may be a “conspiracy theory” but the pipe is usually not used in written language so that it looks a bit artificial. While I sometimes use it I prefer hyphens and slashes in many cases.
  
• Slashes – Everybody uses slashes “/” in URLs. You can use them in title tags as well ad even be grammatically correct. A slash basically means “and” or “or”. I often use a slash for synonyms or for lists of phrases.
  
• Other Separators – There are others separators you van use in your title tag. A plus “+”, a dot “., a number sign “#”, an ampersand or angle quotes “<”, “>” that can be used, especially when combined. Something like Search Marketing > SEO > Onsite Optimization can make sense in a title tag. This example alos looks similar to a breadcrumbs menu so that people can recognize it’s meaning easier of a hierarchy. This item has also been suggested by @rishil
• Misc. Special Characters – There are special characters out there that can lead to trouble though, either by not being diplayed correctly by browsers itself or by confusing the search engines. Using very exotic special characters may have a negative impact. It can stick out as well and get the seardher’s attention as well.
  
• Blanks/Spaces – Most people use blanks or spaces as separators by default. As long as the title tag reflects a sentence structure it works quite well as in “the sky is blue”. Some people tend to list keywords using spaces though. The outcome is something like this “SEO Services SEO Company India Search Engine Optimization (SEO) India”. While such a title may rank well, it’s #1 for [seo india] right now, the very poor readability and spammy apperance will result in a ower CTR.
  
  

• Keyword Proximity – Not only keyword order is important also keyword proximity. A title tag like “SEO blog” will rank better for the keyphrase [seo blog] than “SEO, PPC and social media marketing blog” not only due to the numbers of keywords contained and thus lack of focus but also because the words “SEO” and “blog” are very wide apart.
  
• Keyword Repetition – A few years ago it was a best practice to add repeat your keyword twice in your title tag once varying it slightly. In recent years Google recognizes more and more variations. Thus you don’t have to repeat as many of them anymore. Keyword repetition can havee both a positive or a negative impact on your ranking. Especially repeating a keyword more than twice can lead to a penalty for keyword stuffing, unless it really makes sense semantically.
  
• Title Tag Repetition – By keyword repetition I mean repeating the title tag in the same title tag on the same page. Many people accidentally use the same title tags on two or more pages. This is in most cases bad for your SEO when it comes to Google. Google will display just two results from the same page so having more than pages with the same title tag does not make sense. It’s just duplicate content. You can assign the same ttle tag to the print version of your document but even there you can change it slightly by adding the obvious “print version” modifier. Each title tag should be unique.
  
• Singular, plural – The most accepted method of repetition in one and the same title tag is the singular/plural variation. Example: iPhone/iPhones. It’s been widely used in recent years but Google does a better job by now of finding both the singular and plural versions independently from the query unless it really matters. Someone searching for [paris otels] e.g. is looking for a list of them while a searchers typing [paris hotel] just searches for the best or most renowned one. This item has also been suggested by @jaamit
  
• Synonyms – Synonyms are another legitimate way to add repetition to the title tag. Cars/Autos or bikes/bicycles are good examples here. Some SEO practicioners us multiple of them. I am by now not as convinced anymore as Google recognizes more and more synonyms by now. This item has also been suggested by @rishil
  
• Acronyms – Acronyms or abbreviations are treated almost like synonyms. Just search for [search engine optimization] and you’ll notice that some pages in the SERPS only contain the acronym “SEO”. Depending on your priorities you can add both, the complete term and the abbreviations or just the acronym. In case you want to save space you can rank for the whole keyphrase just by using the acronym. Otherwise you can repeat your keyphrase once using the whole term, once only the short version.
  
• Brand Names – In recent months Google has actually more than once changed the way it treats brand names in search results. The trend is to focus more oin brands than solely on generic keywords and phrases. A brand can actually boost your organic ranking when many people already search for it. Don’t rely solely on generic terms in your title tag. Try to use a brand, by it a personal brand or a corporate one.
  

• Domain Matching – Exact match domains have a string advantage in search results on Google and elsewhere. A domain like SEO.com greatly improves your ranking for a generic term like “seo” as long as you don’t make some big mistakes elsewhere in your SEO campaign.
• Domain Mentioning – Does the domain mention the keyword? It doesn’t have to match it completely. A combination like brandseo.com or seo-brand.com is good enough to be mentioned in the title tag along the actual keyphrase. A title tag like “SEO Services by Cool-SEO.com” can give you an additional boost in the title tag.
  
• URI Matching – Some people will disagree but IMHO title tags matching the actual URL structure are better than those that don’t match it. This may look a bit automated and get down-ranked on large scale websites but on small business sites it’s the way to go. So when your URL is domain.com/seo-services add “SEO Services” to your title tag as well.
  
• h1/2 etc. Matching – Again, this here is my own opinion. Matching h1 or h2 tags on your page will support your title tag as a ranking factor. On the other hand when they don’t match you lose out a bit of relevancy.
  
• Text Matching – Content should always reflect the title tag. In pages where there is not a single mention of the keyphrase found in the title tag the title tag itself won’t have as much o an impact.
  
• Relevancy – Google may select the display title tag from three different places – The website, DMOZ, auto generated by Google. This item has been suggested by @GuavaUK
  

Advanced SEO for title tags

• Use click-through rate data from AdWords to help find the perfect call to action, and work it into the title . This item has been suggested by @SharkSEO
• Load two different titles for Google News and organic by modifying the title after 12 hours. This item has been suggested by @GuavaUK
  
• Use snippet tools to see how it all looks to improve CTR. This item has been suggested by @SEO_Doctor
• Big brands should not put their name in the homepage title – let Google use the DMOZ title to get better CTR. This item has been suggested by @patrickaltoft
• The same as above but use both to target both generic keyword and brand name. This item has been suggested by @rishil
  

Additional title tag optimization resources from elsewhere in the SEO industry:

• Title Tags SEO Tutorial – What are title tags & why are they so important?
• 10 SEO and Marketing-Friendly Title Tag Formulas
• Blog Optimization, Post Title SEO & Deadeye Targeting
• SEO Title Tag Formulas: Create High Performance HTML Title Tags
• Best Practices for Title Tags
• Home Page Title Is Wrong In Google Search Results
  
• 5 Common SEO Mistakes with Web Page Titles

Do you have something to add about title tags and SEO? Do it in the comments please! I may add it to the post itself.

© SEOptimise – Thinking of attending SMX London in May 2010? get a 15% discount code!

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This post is part of the #JUMPchallenge, a blogging competition designed raise awareness on how to join up online and offline marketing, launched to support Econsultancy’s JUMP event.

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It’s essential that the different elements of your marketing reinforce one another if your budget is going to generate the highest possible returns.

Search marketing, traditional marketing and PR cannot happen in isolation from each other, or you will inevitably end up spending more than you need to on a less-effective campaign.

Join your marketing up well and you’ll develop a powerful corporate persona, provide seamless service to new and existing customers, and free-up more budget by eliminating waste.

So, with all these benefits, how do you join up your marketing? I thought I’d examine some of the different strands and take a look at how each can work more effectively with the rest of the marketing mix.

How to join-up PR and everything

PR is a vital element of your marketing strategy, it feeds into everything. PR is about managing your name. After all, without a decent reputation, the rest of your marketing is going nowhere.

Don’t forget as well that your PR executive or team are paid to keep their fingers on the pulse of your industry. They can be a trove of knowledge about coming trends, current issues and consumer concerns.

Your link builders can brainstorm ideas with the PR team and your email marketers can plan their campaign calendar with their help.

Often, your PR exec is also the best person to take up the reins of your social media strategy.

Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms are excellent PR tools, and it’s a great idea to have your company spokespeople blogging (check out my free blogging whitepaper for an in-depth look at why blogs are such a powerful tool).

That means your SEO team can return the favour and guide your PR exec in blogging best practice, boosting your website’s organic optimisation and cementing your corporation reputation with thoughtful insights.

It’s a virtuous circle of joined-up marketing excellence.

How to join-up SEO and everything

Finally the rest of the marketing world is starting to realise what I have been banging on about for years – SEO is not some technical website extra, it should be considered at every stage of your online marketing.

For example, your SEO team understand the terms you need to rank more highly for – they need to be in a position to feed this back to your PR team. That way, your press releases, social media work and blog content can be tailored to include these important phrases.

The SEO team should be included in all copywriting work for your site so that they can guide the copywriter in what’s needed to make your pages sparkle for search engine crawlers as well as for human visitors.

Plus, there’s a load of useful information being gathered around the company that your SEO team could benefit from.

What subject lines did best in the email marketing tests? That can feed into their PPC copy. What industry blogs were most popular on Twitter this month? That can feed into their link building work.

Although all elements of marketing are important, I think that PR and SEO should underpin everything a company does.

How to join-up email marketing and everything

Don’t view your email marketing as solely selling your products or services. Change your perspective and see it as a vehicle for marketing your entire company.

There’s great potential for your email to provide a platform for your other work and still drive interested customers to your products.

For example, you could add ‘Find us on Facebook’ and ‘Follow us on Twitter’ buttons to your emails.

You could include links to recent blog posts on your own site, or maybe even guest blog posts elsewhere (if you’re finding it hard to negotiate a guest post on a high-authority blog, offering to include it in your newsletter can be a great bargaining chip).

Perhaps some of your more skilled SEO copywriters or PR execs could write a newsletter to enhance your marketing? This can make your communication more effective and also boost your brand’s reputation among the recipients.

How to join-up social media and everything

I went to a pub the other day and there was a ‘Find us on Facebook’ sticker on the door. That’s great, keeping social media in mind at every point is really useful in terms of customer engagement.

The more opportunities you have to engage socially with the customer, the better. It massively enhances customer loyalty, as well as keeping your brand at the front of their mind when they next make a purchase.

Some social media marketers may feel they face a bit of a battle showing the value of what they do to the rest of the team. For example, perhaps your email marketing copywriter won’t want to include a ‘Follow us on Twitter’ button because it won’t take clickers to a sales page.

Your business needs to be more long-sighted than this. By building followers and fans, your company is creating a hardcore of loyal customers – people it can communicate with in a fun and social way. A click to Twitter is not a wasted click.

By giving discounts and special offers to fans, you can drive sales without intruding on anyone. You’ll also find it easier to get people to tweet your blog posts, share your content and rave about your deals – all of which feeds back beautifully into PR and SEO.

How to join up your offline and online marketing

Many small and medium-sized enterprises simply don’t bother with offline marketing, because the web is a far more cost-effective place to promote themselves.

However, offline marketing such as posters, newspaper, TV and radio adverts still work for major brands. There’s also similar great scope for local offline marketing for smaller companies, in the local press, for example.

But how can this join-up with your online marketing? Just as with email marketing, your offline promotions should show that there are even more value-adding perks available online.

For great discounts and sneak previews, find us on Facebook.

Find more great recipes back on our website.

Follow us on Twitter for more competitions.

You have limited space in any offline promotion but unlimited space online. Direct people to the web when you can and you’ll have more space to play with and another chance to win their custom.

How to join-up your team

Okay, this is perhaps the most important piece of advice in this entire post. Your marketing won’t be joined-up until the various relevant teams are working together.

Some large businesses will have whole teams dedicated to the different marketing strands I have outlined here – and it is essential these teams get to know each other.

You want them to communicate more effectively, brainstorm ideas with each other and share their skills. You need to facilitate that as much as possible.

Start by bringing the teams together and sitting them around the same desks if possible. Explain your marketing ambitions and encourage them to see themselves as part of one large team rather than their own smaller functions.

If your SEO is done by an agency like mine then ask for your search executive to come and work from your office for a few days, to build a good working relationship with your in-house marketers.

If this is a major change for your marketers then invest in some team-building fun. Send them off for a meal together or a team-building day or drinks. It’s worth it.

Your marketing can’t be joined up until your whole team – email marketers, link builders, paid search executives, the lot – see themselves as part of a bigger team and wider strategy.

© SEOptimise – Thinking of attending SMX London in May 2010? get a 15% discount code!

Time flies by. It’s more than two years by now that I wrote the highly popular “30+” list blog posts to get links and traffic for SEOptimise. I’ve often tried to abandon them, to write tutorials or other types of postings but list posts with around 30 items still rule. They get the most

• shares on social media
• links
• attention
• traffic

for several reasons.

This year all of the big guys in the SEO blogosphere started doing 30 something lists as well, SEOmoz does them, SEL complies them. They even surpass my lists in some cases as they spend obviously more time on them than I do. Their success with this technique has just confirmed to me that 30+ lists work. That’s why I will tell you how to write them.

In the web design/web development niche even more people publish lists like that all the time.

Why 30?

For some reason 30+ lists are better suited for the Web than top 10, 20 or wahtever lists. I have a few ideas why that is the case but these ideas are just speculation. What I do know for sure is that the so called task ROI of most 30+ lists is higher than the top 10, whatever or top 100 lists.

One crucial success factor is that people tend to think in dozens not necessarily tens IMHO.

The decimal system makes us read and write top 10, top 20 or top 100 lists but the more “natural” way to count is by using dozens as in twelve hours. That’s why a number like 36 sounds better to many of us. Even though 30 is two and a half dozens this number just seems to entice people to read.

Also most people are tired of top 10 and 20 lists, they have been overused. Here again 30+ sounds more natural.

Last but not least you simply can’t compile a list of 100 items without broadening the topic or lowering the quality of the list.

Most lists are comprehensive enough with around 30 items.

More items would often be redundant or less relevant. A top 10 list also implies a personal selection of some kind. You have to choose “the best” 10 while 30 items cover a subject in depth.

That’s why I sometimes even reduce the number of items in a list, at least in the headline. One of my favorite lists has been the one about advanced SEO which contained 55+ links but only around 30 items officially.

Delicious

I collect great posts from SEO blogs in my Delicious account onreact.com and I tag them according to a set of rules. I add mostly tags I’ve used in the past to categorize these posting in relevant groups.

Then from time to time I take a look at some of the tags and those that contain more than 10 or 20 items get my attention. Sometimes they are almost thirty already so I just have to copy and paste the links. I delete the unworthy ones and add some from outside my Delicious bookmarks but the bulk of the work has been done while reading social media, search and SEO news in the morning each day.

Sometimes I have to combine several tags into one trend. The brutal thruths about Google, SEO etc. have been such a list. It was clear to me that there was a trend in the industry to write about the less glamorous parts of the SEO game but I couldn’t name it. Then the inspiration came out of nowhere and I have found the common ground to add it up to a list.

In some cases I don’t use Delicious at all. I simply get inspired and simply write down approx. 30 item from the top of my head.

Twitter

From time to time I use Twitter to crowdsource list items. The SEO FAQ list heavily relied on input from my Twitter followers. Also the black hat SEO techniques list has grown with a little help of my friends.

You have to ask the right questions and offer incentives though. The SEO FAQ offered both backlinks and content for those who took part. I asked my Twitter followers about the black hat SEO techniques their arch enemies use. Otherwise people would probably mostly stay low key.

Link list or item list?

A simple link list is not the best kind of list. Sometimes I just have to compile a list of resources and link  them beacuse there are so many of them. Such a list can overwhelm though. Many people like lists because they want to have a quick overview about a subject, not a huge reading list. Therefore a combined text item list with added links for further reading is the best option. This way you get both kinds of list readers, the save for later bunch as well as the quick overview group.

A simple link list will not be as popular as an item list with added links to prove the points. Still both list formats are highly popular. A 30+ list post done in 4h will get more traction on the Web than a tutorial that took 6 or 8h to write.

Linking out

Another key factor leading to the overwhelming success of my lists posts in general is the massive amount of outbound links. While many SEOs are still stuck in the past and attempt to hoard PageRank and trap users like the news media do I rely on linking out for SEO reasons.

We already know that Google prefers sites that link out

(after all they need outgoing links to determine their PageRank algo) but have no proof yet that they affect rankings directly.

What’s obvious though is that people who you are linking to will link back to you, spread the word on social media and support your blog or even business in the future.

So at the end of the day the fact that I link out to dozens of other blogs get me traffic and links in significant numbers.

Contrary to popular wisdom SEOptimise has improved in rankings in recent years ever since we link out in large numbers. SEOptimise ranks in the top 10 for some of the most competitive search marketing terms while being a relatively small agency compared to the competition.

Also the lists themselves tend to rank quite well. SEOptimise ranks top 3 for [advanced SEO], [SEO techniques] or [social media statistics].

The secret is our broad, organic backlink structure build up by business blogging utilizing these highly popular 30+ items list posts.

© SEOptimise – Thinking of attending SMX London in May 2010? get a 15% discount code!

It’s actually incredibly quick to write a post like this, all you need to do is install the plugin and insert the tweet URL into your post using the format: [blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/kevgibbo/status/19346618549″].

© SEOptimise – Thinking of attending SMX London in May 2010? get a 15% discount code!