Title Tag Do’s & Don’ts Part 2

In Title Tag Do’s & Don’ts Part 1 we discussed how to properly format your title tags for search engine success. Keeping in mind what you learned in that post, you want experiment a bit with your title tags. This is especially true where your keywords vary slightly in word order such as Dog Collars vs Collars for Your Dog.

According to Search Engine News “Your success with using repetition and variation will be somewhat dependent upon your specific target keywords as well as the degree of competition within your niche.”

Making sure to master these title tag elements correctly is critical to ranking successfully at the top of the SERP’s. Experience shows us that implementing these minor tweaks in the title tag can make the difference between a first and second page listing. So, you should experiment with your title tags (staying within these guidelines) to get the best possible results from this critically important on-page optimization strategy.

Stupid Title Tags Mistakes to Avoid

Ok, now that you know what a good title tag looks like, take a look at some examples of a poorly written title tag.

Bad title tag example
Doggy Word – Best Prices in Collars for Your Dog

The title tags above contains a number of mistakes. First, the company name is placed first, it does not use the exact keyword phrase (Collars for Your Dog is not the same as Dog Collars), it fails to repeat a variation of the keyword, and finally it places the keyword phrase at the end of the title tag. These are common title tag mistakes you should avoid at all times.

Let’s take a look at some other stupid title tag mistakes

Really bad title tag
Dog Collars, Dog Collars, Dog Collars, Dog Collars, Dog Collars, Dog Collars, Dog Collars, Dog Collars, Dog Collars, Dog Collars

STOP THAT! Repeating keywords over and over can get your web page penalized causing you to loose rankings. While it is acceptable to use slight variations of your targeted keyword phrase and/or even repeat it later in the title tag, never repeat it more than twice… and one repetition usually works just fine.

For more on proper title tag optimization stay tuned for Title Tag Do’s & Don’ts Part 3