It's hard to imagine Oscar Wilde's classic, The IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, would still be widely played if it was called UNTITLED DOCUMENT.

The title tag is in the head part of your html pages, and it is the text that appears in the top title bar of your web browser. Many websites don't take much care with this critical element. If they're not as bad as giving their webpages no title, they tend to give the page titles that are too short or not very informative.

For most search engines, the title tag is the single most important element. They put a lot of weight on the keywords that you use in those title tags, so use that knowledge to your advantage!

Here are a few tips:

Search engines accept varying lengths of page titles, but if you want to be safe, make them 6-12 words long.

Keep the title meaningful. Don't just list your keywords, as that may smack of keyword spamming to the search engines. Try to use the most important words first in natural language.

It should be intriguing. Remember that the title tag is also the linked text that potential visitors will see in the search engine results, so it should be informative and interesting.

Each page gets its own title tag, related to the content on that page.

Remember the page titles also become bookmarks and favourites, so include the name of your website in the title.

Ideally, the main content elements of the page title should be repeated as the main headline on your actual page. And in a perfect scenario, that text would be the same as the text that your visitor clicked to get to the page.

If you would like some help turning your prosaic page titles into pure search engine poetry, contact me.