Writing webpage titles with impact

Well written webpage titles are vital to the success of a site, yet they are often one of the most overlooked components in the Web design process.

Titles play a major role in determining how high search engines rank your webpages; they effect how likely people are to visit your site; and they can even play a significant role in your website's branding.

In this month's Web development newsletter, we take a close look at why webpage titles are so important and give you advice that will help make your website more successful.

Before we begin... titles vs headings

Webpage titles are sometimes confused with headings. Before we continue, here's a brief overview of the difference: Titles are displayed in the Web browser's title bar (the horizontal bar that runs across the very top of the Web browser window, which also contains the name of your browser and the program's minimize, maximize and close buttons). Headings, on the other hand, appear within the body of the webpage. Webpage titles are defined between the <title> and </title> HTML elements in your website's code.

Why are titles so important?

There are several reasons why titles are so important, including:

Competitors: When Web users have multiple webpages open simultaneously, the titles of all webpages will appear in the task bar of the user's computer or their Web browser's tabs. Chances are that the other webpages they have open at the same time will be from your competitors. An effective title on your webpages that grabs the attention of Web users as they switch between pages can mean the difference between getting noticed and gaining a customer, or losing one forever to a competitor.
Favourites: When people add a webpage to their 'Favourites' list (also called bookmarking), the title will be the default text that is displayed in the list. The wording of your titles will therefore effect how likely the Web user will recognise your site in their list in the future.
Search engines: Search engines place significant emphasis on webpage titles. Words appearing in the title will usually be considered very important in determining your website's relevance, and therefore its position in search results.
Web users: When people skim search engine results, their eyes will primarily focus on titles. The title therefore effects how likely they will notice your site.
First impressions: In most search engine results, webpage titles become the actual links to webpages. Your title therefore becomes a Web user's first "interaction" with your site. If your title contains the name of your website or business, the Web user's act of clicking your title means they are also "interacting" with your brand.

What to write first: your website's name or webpage's description?

There is debate as to whether webpage titles should first contain a website's name followed by a description of the page, or vice versa.

Writing your site's name first might result in better "brand" recognition for your site, but the purpose of the page might not stand out as much, especially when the page is minimized and only visible in the taskbar or Web browser's tab, since only the first few characters will be displayed. Writing the description of a webpage first, followed by the site name, emphasises the webpage's purpose more, but you reduce branding.

There is no "best" solution, although most site owners tend to first write their website's name. Your choice will really depend on your own preference and weighing up the benefits and disadvantages of both options.

Don't repeat the webpage title

Each webpage throughout your site should have a unique webpage title. Don't use identical titles throughout your site: search engines don't like it. Using unique titles for each page gives much better results in search engines.

This doesn't mean that you should vary entire titles, only change the part of the title necessary for the page. For example, the title structure you choose to use throughout your site might consist of the website's name, followed by the area of the website being visited and then a description of the page. Simply using a different description for each page is sufficient.

Include important keywords

Your webpage titles should describe the purpose of each webpage and contain important keywords relevant for each page at the same time. Because page titles play a major role in search engine rankings, the keywords contained in titles will have particular importance. Always write your title logically or as a sentence; don't attempt to merely add a list of relevant keywords. Search engines will interpret this as spamming and may reduce your website's rank in search results. Also make sure that the keywords that appear in the webpage's title also appear in its content.

Be concise

Make titles as concise as possible. Titles that are too long might not fit in the Web browser's window, and will simply be truncated in search results.

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