Title Tags! Title Tags! Title Tags!
Yes, it is extremely important that your title tags are properly optimised. This is the most common mistake people make on their websites and it is probably the easiest to rectify, or even to just get right in the first place.
- Make sure each page on your website has a unqiue title.
- Make sure your title is descriptive and does not just simple say “Welcome to X”
Your title is an opportunity to let Google know straight away what your company / website is about.
How do I see what my website title is ?
- Open your browser, then type in your website address.
- Anywhere on your website, preferably where there is a blank spot, click the right button on your mouse. It will open a small menu, click on “View source”.
- This will open a text file with a lot of scary code – DON’T BE AFRAID
- You are going to look for the following text <title> . You can do a search on the document if you cannot see it straight away.
- The text between your title tags: <title> text here </title> is your website title. This is what Google will most likely list on the search result for your company. So you can see why it is important not only to Google but also to the searcher.
How do I change the <title> tag?
This can be done by a web designer, if you have one in the closet If you do not have a web designer hanging around then this is what you need to do:
- You need to download a FTP program – If you do a search for FileZilla on Google this will be your best bet, great little program and it is free.
- Once you have downloaded and installed FileZilla on your machine you will need to contact your hosting company. Your hosting company have your FTP details. Your FTP details are basically a URL / Web Address, username and password that allows you to “talk” directly to the server. PS. by “talk” I don’t actually mean “physically talking to the machine”. I mean that you are able to make changes to documents and files on the server that you would not ordinarily have been able to do without these details. You might need your hosting company to guide you through setting up the FTP.
- Once FileZilla has been setup with the correct FTP details, you will now have access to the files on the server. Be careful, if you delete files on the server, they are gone. Always make a backup of the file you are editing on your local machine.
- The homepage of your website will most likely be called something like “index.htm / index.html / index.php / default.asp / default.html”
- Once you have copied a “backup” of the file (create a new folder call backup), and the one you want to edit, right click on the file, then select “edit with” – you can use “Windows Note Pad” to edit the file or there are a bunch of free HTML editors out there, but for the purpose of this exercise you can just use Windows Note Pad. (Others editors included NotePad ++ & PSPad)
- Once your file has been opened in Note Pad you will see a bunch of content and info on the page, might look scary but remember we are only looking for the following tag <title>
- Have you found it ? Now make sure you edit only the text between <title> </title>. It is important that those tags not be changed, only the info between them needs to be changed.
- Now change the <title> tag to something more descriptive than “Welcome to X”
- Once you have changed it, save the document, then upload the changes to the server. This can be done for all the pages on your website.
- Please be careful when editing your site, if in doubt speak to somebody who has SEO or web design experience.
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