How Does Google Choose Titles For Search Results?

We use a number of different sources for this information, including descriptive information in the title and meta tags for each page. We may also use publicly available information—for instance, anchor text or listings from the Open Directory Project (DMOZ)—or create rich snippets based on markup on the page.

While we can't manually change titles or snippets for individual sites, we're always working to make them as relevant as possible. You can help improve the quality of the title and snippet displayed for your pages by following the general guidelines below.

 Create descriptive page titles

Titles are critical to giving users a quick insight into the content of a result and why it’s relevant to their query. It's often the primary piece of information used to decide which result to click on, so it's important to use high-quality titles on your web pages.

Here are a few tips for managing your titles:

• As explained above, make sure every page on your site has a title specified in the <title> tag. If you’ve got a large site and are concerned you may have forgotten a title somewhere, the HTML suggestions page in Webmaster Tools lists missing or potentially problematic <title> tags on your site.


• Page titles should be descriptive and concise. Avoid vague descriptors like "Home" for your home page, or "Profile" for a specific person's profile. Also avoid unnecessarily long or verbose titles, which are likely to get truncated when they show up in the search results.

Create good meta descriptions

The description attribute within the <meta> tag is a good way to provide a concise, human-readable summary of each page’s content. Google will sometimes use the meta description of a page in search results snippets, if we think it gives users a more accurate description than would be possible purely from the on-page content. Accurate meta descriptions can help improve your clickthrough; here are some guidelines for properly using the meta description.

• Make sure that every page on your site has a meta description. The HTML suggestions page in Webmaster Tools lists pages where Google has detected missing or problematic meta descriptions.

Best SEO Practices After Google Panda Update

The SEO model has changed with Panda in that, rather than getting as many URLs as you can indexed, you now want only your highest-quality, most important URLs indexed.

What Does This Mean For SEO?

It has been common practice for many years to monitor overall site indexing in each of the major engines mostly focusing on Google, naturally. Sites that weren’t being indexed deeply would need specific tactics to push that number up, and sites well indexed would be monitored closely to ensure that was sustained.

How To Improve Your Google Rankings

Search engine optimization is the practice of making your site as accessible as possible to both search engines and readers. Optimizing your site will make it visible not only to Google, but to every other search engine on the Web.

Keywords :

Scenario: you get an occasional click from Google for a certain keyword. You go to find out why you aren’t getting more clicks, and you find out that you’re ranked in the 30's, 50's, or heaven forbid, the 300's. “Great”, you think, “I finally get ranked for a good keyword and it’s a worthless ranking”.

Not necessarily. If you got ranked for a keyword in Google that you wanted At All, the game’s not over yet. If your site’s content is geared towards that subject, you can get your ranking in Google's search engine increased, at no cost. How? The first thing you want to do is find out how well you are ranked for this keyword.

Find Your Google Keyword Ranking

For Google in particular, this used to be a difficult chore. In the old days, you’d spend your valuable time doing a search on your desired keyword, then a sub-search for your site, and crawling through pages of listings to find out exactly where you stood. Now there is hope in the form of the following website. Direct your browser to Google Rankings.

You can use this site to find out what number you come up for in the Google listings, which can be very powerful information if used correctly. If you’re ranked in the top 1000, you have a shot at raising your listing for that page by tweaking the page to be a little more relevant.

So, secondly, you have to know how good a shot you have at getting a better listing. Go to:Search Term Difficulty Checker. This tool tells you how hard it is to rank well for certain keywords in Google. You’ll need a free Google API key to use it.

Estimate Search Traffic

Now that you know your chances, the third piece of information you need to know is how much traffic you can expect. Digital Point has a free tool that gives an approximation of how many hits per day a good ranking gets. Access it here:Keyword Suggestion Tool.

Latest Google Updates For SEO

It has been an incredibly eventful year in terms of updates from Google. Major 2013 changes included further releases of Penguin and Panda, Hummingbird taking flight, and the shift away from providing keyword data thanks to encrypted search.

Many have gone so far as to ask whether SEO as a profession is dead: for one interesting perspective, see my recent Forbes interview with Sam Roberts of VUDU Marketing. My own take is less alarmist: Google has taken major spam-fighting steps that have shifted the playing field for SEO professionals and anyone trying to get their site on the map in the year ahead.

At the same time, the need for an online presence has never been stronger, while the landscape has never been more competitive. The potential to make a real ROI impact with your company's online marketing initiative is greater than ever. But defaulting to so-called "gray hat" tactics no longer works. Instead, SEO professionals need to step up and embrace a more robust vision of our area of expertise.

You might call it a move from tactician to strategist: the best and most successful players in our space will work to anticipate Google's next moves and respond to them with laser focus. In a sense, the infinite digital game of chess that is SEO will continue, but the rules of the game have become more complex.

Through a mix of what I'm observing and reading and what I'm seeing working out in the field today for my clients, here are some suggestions for companies and SEO professionals that are thinking ahead to 2014 for their digital strategies.

Best SEO Practices

It sounds unrealistic but isn’t. E-commerce SEO and conversion rate optimization can double your traffic and sales. When I show them proof, my prospective clients have many questions about generating more traffic, boosting conversions, increasing sales, engaging buyers and turning them into fans. Here are the most popular questions and my answers.

 

If you have any more tips or advice you think our other readers should know about, please add them as a comment to this post. I’m looking forward to hearing from you.