Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be a very confusing subject. It’s hard enough for technology experts to understand, let alone my 65-year-old father. With that being said, my father is in the process of embracing Inbound Marketing to help his already successful insurance agency, Infantine Insurance Inc., to find new channels to generate business.
Full disclosure: Most of my SEO education comes from sources like HubSpot, SEOmoz, or Michael Gray. But, I am an expert at standing on the shoulders of giants to explain how SEO will help my father get more customers (and build my inheritance).
Page Titles are one of the critical on-page SEO areas that should get special attention. The image below shows a screen shot of the current title for Infantine’s homepage.
Current Page Title: Infantine Insurance Inc.
Because the Title Tag is such a prime piece of SEO real-estate, it is a great opportunity to help your site rank for keywords. In order to maximize the effectiveness of my father’s website, I am telling him to follow these best practices:
- Use unique Page Titles on every page of your site. Every page is an opportunity to rank, and you should use that opportunity to the fullest.
- Have the Page Title be applicable to the page content. Trying to stuff keywords about car insurance into the title tag on a page about flood insurance won’t help you.
- Keep Page Titles short. Title tags should be limited to 70 characters. Figure that you should cap your keywords at 7-8 words. The more words you use, the more diluted their effect will be when your page is indexed.
- Words at the front of the Page Titles are more heavily weighted. Because of this little tidbit, you should put your company name at the end of your Page Titles. If someone is searching for your company name, they already know about you. Use the the Page Titles to put yourself in the shoes of your (potential) customers.
- Use the “pipe” or “vertical dash” to separate key terms. The “pipe” character – “|” – is a very clean way to divide key terms in your title, without the character being confused with other types of punctuation that can actually still connect terms.
Putting these best practices together, here are some suggestions for what Infantine should be doing on various pages:
Homepage
Current Page Title: Infantine Insurance Inc.
Suggested Page Title: New Hampshire Commercial – Personal Insurance | Infantine Insurance Inc
Business Insurance
Current Page Title: Infantine Insurance Inc. – Business Insurance
Suggested Page Title: Business Commercial Insurance | Manchester – Bedford, NH | Infantine Insurance Inc
Contact Us
Current Page Title: Infantine Insurance Inc. – Contact Us
Suggested Page Title: Manchester, NH Insurance | Contact Us | Infantine Insurance Inc
If you’ve been taking notes, you’ll probably see that not all my suggested titles adhere strictly to the best practices. Busted! But, you still need to have the title makes sense to humans, and these best practices are really “guide lines”. Just try to get the most out of your keywords & Page Titles.
For those of you that aren’t my 65-year-old father, you can read more on Page Titles from SEOmoz at http://www.seomoz.org/article/bg4#4b
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Thanks for these great tips! I’ll have to incorporate the vertical dash. It’s something that looks so clean and simple in the title but yet so useful for separating key terms.
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