The Title Tag is one of the most important tags in terms of SEO. It is given a lot of weight by the search engines and it is what entices searchers to visit your site. Since there may be indication that the search engines measure the click through rate and/or bounce rate the title tag becomes even more important.

Do not waste space in your title tag with the name of your website. Also, don’t just put “Home Page” in the tag. Use your title tag to describe what it on your site using the keywords that you are targeting. If you must add the name of your company, do it at the end of the title.

Also, try to keep your title tag around 10-60 characters with no special characters. It has been rumored that Google penalizes for special characters in your title tag.

Metatag Optimization for SEO

When optimizing your website for the search engines, it is important to pay attention to your metatags. The metatags are not seen by visitors to your website, but they are used extensively by search engines. For example, the description of a website in the search engine is often the “description metatag.” Although the metatags are important, they are only a portion of the on-page site optimization.

The Title Tag – This isn’t really a metatag, but it is included in the header with the metatages. The Title Tag is the text that will appear at the top of the browser when a vistor is viewing your site. It is also what appears in the bookmark when someone adds your site to their favorites. The title tag is very important for search engines. Make sure to include your keyword in the title tag (close to the beginning). Also, make sure it is written to encourage people to visit your site because search engines will list your title in their search results.

Meta Description Tag – The Description tag is used to show the theme of your website. Some search engines, such as Google, ignore this tag. Others will use it partially to describe your website in their search results.

Meta Keywords Tag – The Keyword tag also shows the theme of your website. Every keyword in this tag should be included in the body of your website or it may be penalized for irrelevance. Like the description tag, many engines also ignore the keywords tag, but it is still used by some search engines. Also, use the metatag to include variations of keywords or common misspellings.

Metatags are no longer as important as they once were – most likely because of how easy it is for webmasters to manipulate the search engines using them.