by Cindy Helton on September 19, 2009
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What is a Title Tag?
A title tag is the text that appears at the top of your browser and is what appears in the clickable link on the search engine results page. If you take the time to improve your page title tags, you may actually improve your click through rate. You can aim for 10-12 word but keep it to 70 characters or less.
What Goes in a Title Tag?
I am a firm believer of keeping you company name in most, if not all, of your title tags. There is some debate if it goes first or last. Each case is different but probably put your company name first if you are branding your actual name and people are searching by that name. An example might be Wal-mart, where people are actually searching for the company perhaps before the products. In other cases if it is your product or service that people will be searching for, you may do better to put your company name last.
Use your keywords in your title tags carefully. Make sure the title tags stays relevant to the content on your page. Don’t over stuff it with keywords. Keep your title tags unique. Every page is unique, so therefore, every title tag should be unique. Title tags do not have to be grammatically correct but they should read easily. It is not necessary to populate your tags with excess punctuation.
After you have selected your keywords and the text has been written for the page, your next step should be to craft your title tags. Take the opportunity if you use Wordpress to create your own title tag not just use the one that Wordpress creates for you. Just this one change can make a difference in your website responses since title tags are known to be an important part of the search engine algorithm.
by Cindy Helton on July 22, 2009
Without a doubt FireFox is my favorite browser. One thing that makes it so beneficial is the add-ons and extensions that are available for enhancing its use. Here are 3 of my favorites.
Read It Later
“Read It Later allows you to save pages of interest to read later. It eliminates cluttering of bookmarks with sites that are merely of a one-time interest”. I search the Internet often and I always find posts or articles on other topics I am interested in while searching. I hated having to bookmarking them before I have even read them. This add-on sits in your browser window and saves items to a list so you can read them later on or offline. You can then decide if you want to bookmark them. Very easy to use and one of my could-not-live-without-it add-ons.
SEO for Firefox
SEO for Firefox is actually a free extension and a must have for people serious about SEO. It provides an entire list of information about every website you search. It sits in bottom of your browser tray and is turned on by simply clicking it. Information such as Google page rank, social bookmarking, age of site, technorati, links and more is displayed for every search you execute.
Firebug
Firebug combines with Firefox to be a great help to web developers. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. It is simple to install and sits in a bar at the bottom of your browser. I am still learning all the possibilities for this free tool but I am totally amazed at how it allows you to change ANY website you are on, see the results and nothing is permanent. It is extremely beneficial in web-design.
Next post we will look at three more of my Firefox favorites. Share with us in the comments below any of your favorites.
by Cindy Helton on July 15, 2009
I recently earned my Inbound Marketing Professional Certification from the Inbound Marketing University. I have had numerous people ask what exactly does that means. In a nutshell Inbound marketing is the concept of drawing people to you verses outbound ( traditional) marketing which is hunting down your prospects. This is a great explanation by Hubspot Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing. The courses were uniquely taught by experts in each of the areas of concentration.
The Inbound Marketing Certification acknowledges the recipient’s proficiency in Inbound Marketing principals and best practices. In order to receive the Inbound Marketing Certification, the student engages in a variety of courses and pass a comprehensive certification exam, demonstrating subject matter expertise in the following areas:
- Advanced Search Engine Optimization and Ranking Improvement Strategies
- How to Blog Effectively for Businesses
- Social Media and Building Community
- Business Applications for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other Social Networks
- Viral Marketing and World-Wide Raves
- Creating Strong Calls to Action and Effective Landing Pages
- Inbound Lead Nurturing (Turning Leads into Sales)
- Successful Email Marketing
- Analyzing Results and Demonstrating ROI
This is an example of the efforts of the team at CreeksBend Media to continual learn and engage in new techniques and strategies to help your business grow. If you want more information on Inbound Marketing feel free to ask questions or discuss in the comments below or contact us directly.
