What the Heck is SEO, #2: Title Tags

Welcome to the second post in my What the Heck is SEO? series on Search Engine Optimization for real estate professionals. You've probably never asked anyone “How’s your meta data?”, but I assure you that you will after reading these next few posts!

In my kick-off post titled “What the Heck is SEO, Anyway?”, we talked about the definition of Search Engine Optimization, search engine market share, the difference between Push and Pull Marketing, and the critical importance of ranking well in the search results on Google and Bing.

In this post, we’re going to roll up our sleeves, pop the hood, and start tuning up your website!

Search engines like Google and Bing work by “crawling” the internet with programs called bots or spiders that read the content of a website, taking a snapshot of each page of the site (called indexing or caching), and saving it in an index (a giant database of websites) each time the site changes. 

Then, when you search for something, the search engine compares your search term to the sites in its index, decides which web pages are the best match, and ranks them in its search results.

The actual algorithms used by search engines to make these decisions are closely guarded trade secrets. But search engines publish their standards and guidelines, and search engine optimization professionals are able to make judgments and infer certain factors using these guidelines and good old-fashioned trial and error.

The purpose of this series isn't to get into the nuts and bolts of how search engines work; it’s to help you improve your website using language and concepts that are easy to understand. So, close your eyes and imagine for a second that you’re going on a business trip to check out some real estate investment opportunities...

You’re in the airport waiting to board your flight, and you just realized you didn't bring anything to read! You wander into the airport bookstore and start browsing for a book to read. You find the section you want, cock your head to the side, and do what? You read the titles, of course!

Guess what? Google and Bing do the exact same thing! The first place Google and Bing look when trying to determine what a page on your website is about is the Title Tag! The title tag is a snippet of HTML code in each page of your website that looks like this: 

<title>Title of This Web Page</title>

The title tag is only visible in the header of your browser when you are viewing a particular page, so it is often overlooked by real estate professionals and web developers when designing their site.

"The first place Google and Bing look when trying to determine what a page on your website is about is the Title Tag!"

The other place your title tag is visible is in search engine results - it becomes the blue hyperlinked text for each search result listed:

So now that you understand the importance of your title tags, what do yours say? If you have never given them any thought or you use a template-based website, chances are they say “Home” or “Welcome”, or some other generic term. 

Obviously, your website has absolutely nothing to do with “Home” or “Welcome”, yet this is the number one mistake that small business owners make when designing their own websites! These generic title tags are just wasted space.

 "Generic title tags are the number one mistake small business owners make when designing their own websites!"

Good title tags should reflect two things: 1) What your business does, and 2) Where you are located. They should be concise (no more than 60 characters) and get straight to the point. Here are a few good examples:

• Dallas, TX Home Inspections by Suzy Brown
• Apartment Rentals in St Petersburg, Florida by Lowery Inc.
• Joe's Plumbing in San Jose, CA

And keep in mind that each page of your site has its own title tag, so if you have one page about rentals, and another page on your website about homes for sale, make sure the titles reflect this!

"Remember each page of your site has its own title tag!"

So, now that you’re armed with this knowledge of the force, get to work on those title tags (and keep in mind it can take Google and Bing anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to update your site in their index).

Now back to our story in the airport bookstore. You’ve narrowed it down to two books that look promising based on their titles. How do you decide which one to buy and which one goes back on the shelf?

Find out in my next post in this series post on meta tags!

Subscribe and stay tuned!

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Jeff Copeland is a real estate broker and property manager in St Petersburg, Florida, and broker/owner of Copeland Morgan LLC. You can find him on Bigger Pockets under @Jeff Copeland.