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By default, when you install Magento, the title tag is set as:
Magento Commerce
However, this doesn`t help you at all.
What Are Title Tags, and why do they matter?
When you search in Google, the search results on the next page each start with a blue underlined link.
Here`s an example:Google Search Results Example
What displays in this blue link is usually what is contained in the title tag of a web page. The keywords you placed in the search box are usually boldfaced in the search results.
So, just what is a title tag, and why does it matter for search engine positioning?
According to the World Wide Web Consortium, the Title tag was designed to help people “identify the contents of a document.” When people view individual web pages out of context (often via search), context-rich page titles help tell the visitor a summary of the page.
Instead of a title like “Introduction”, which doesn`t provide much contextual background, web designers should supply a title such as “Introduction to Medieval Bee-Keeping” instead.
Google and other search engines use these rich contextual clues as a way to hone its search results.
On a web page, the title tag is part of the HTML code. Here`s what the code looks like on Customer Paradigm`s site:
Customer Paradigm: Website Design, Development, Email Marketing, Content Management, PHP programming
Most end users won`t see the title tag. But if you remember back to my email tip about subject lines, the title tag is what a subject line is to an email campaign: It entices the end user to pay attention and open the page to read more.
Top Five Most Common Mistakes for Title Tags:
1. Untitled: When many of the popular programs create a new HTML page, it puts `Untitled` into the title tag. It`s up to the Web designer to change this… and since most users don`t see it, sometimes they forget to change it.
2. No Title Tag: Like the “Untitled” tag, another key mistake is simply leaving out the title tag. If you do a view source (Internet Explorer: View -> Source), and the title tag appears like:
… then you don`t have a title tag.
3. “About” Tag: Another common mistake for title tags is to have the title tag refer to a section of your website. But a title tag that reads, “About” doesn`t tell me much about what the company or website is “About.” Instead, have it read:
Customer Paradigm – About the Company: Website Development & Marketing, Email Deployment, and PHP programming
This is sure to get more keywords into the title tag, and if you`re searching for a company, you instantly know what they do.
4. No Company Name In Title Tag: We recommend putting your company name at the beginning of the title tag, so that people can quickly see your company`s name when they search.
5. Same Title Tag on Multiple Pages: You should have a unique title tag for each page of the site. Why? As each page is unique, you should have a title tag that describes it`s unique content.
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