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As the Web has evolved over the years, we have established a (fairly) standard set of icons — a trash can or a cross has come to represent deleting or removing something; an envelope has become the indicator for a message or mail. These are little visual cues to help people along their way. Some icons have established such strong associations that they can exist on their own without supporting text, meaning, they can remove language barriers to form their own universal language. We need to use the right icons to communicate the right things.

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So, what are they anyway? A Title Tag is a piece of code that looks something like this: <title>Springfield MO Web Design and Web Development | 40Digits</title>

Title Tags are required for HTML and define what the page is about. Remember, they are called, Title Tags. So, think of them as the title of your page.

Take a look at some Title Tags by noticing the text that appears at the top of your browser.

Title tags are also displayed in the search engine results

Other than your content, Title Tags are the most important element of your site that you can optimize.

Avoid these practices:

• Leave out Title Tags that are full of keywords, search engines can see this as a sneaky attempt to skirt the system and penalize you as a result.
• Don’t just write for search engines. Remember that people will see these Title Tags too.
• Leave out default or vague single word titles like “Home” or “Contact”
• Whatever you do, leave out using a single Title Tag across all of your site’s pages or a large group of pages. Search engines and people want to know what the page is about. Duplicate Title Tags don’t help.

Now that you know a bit about them, here’s how to rock the Title Tag world with just a few simple steps.

• Keep your Title Tag to 70 characters or less. 70 is the maximum amount of characters that will be displayed in the search engines. Anything longer than 70 gets truncated with an ellipsis …
• Your Title Tag should be concise. The attention span online is measured in seconds. Let them know what the page is all about as efficiently as you can.
• Each page of your site should have a unique Title Tag. As mentioned above, duplicate or empty Title Tags don’t give people or search engines any idea what the page is about.
• Use your most prominent keyword first and your secondary keyword next. Search engines give more importance to the first couple of words in your Title Tag.
• Include your brand name, but put it at the end of the tag. If people would buy your product because of the brand name, put it at the beginning of the tag.

When you’re beginning to learn SEO, always ask why! Why are Title Tags important? Here are just a few reasons that will convince anyone.

None other than Google itself will tell you how important Title Tags are to search engines. Google puts out a Search Engine Optimization Starter guide, and it states, “A title tag tells both users and search engines what the topic of a particular page is.” You can’t get more upfront than that.

Over at Google’s Webmaster Blog, we get even more support for the importance of Title Tags, “Search engines index pages based on the words contained in them, and including descriptive titles helps search engines know what the pages are about.”

The title tag is a really low hanging fruit. With a quality keyword list and a couple of hours, you can start to make some real improvement to your ranking in the search engines. Now, get out there and start optimizing!

Yelp has reported quarterly earnings for the first time since going public. The business recommendation site reported very strong growth for Q1 2012 and candy and sunshine and flowers.

In these kinds of reports, there’s always a big “but”. The big “but” for Yelp is that their total expenses grew 92%, while their revenue only grew 66% year-over-year. Q1 of 2012 saw Yelp spending 19 million on sales and marketing, which is up a whopping 67% from 2011′s Q1.

At the end of the day, Yelp’s bottom line shows a total loss of 10 million dollars for Q1 2012, and that’s no laughing matter for a social network that recommends businesses at a time when people are still spending less money than 5 years ago on eating out and other of life’s little luxuries.

If all this seems like Deja Vu all over again, it’s because it is. Groupon is in the same boat. It’s the boat christened “We need to find a way to continue growing revenue, without further increasing our marketing expenses”.

Before considering jumping into the deep end of social media, contact MESH, a full service digital agency. We’re your best friend in the social media business!

Related articles

• Yelp losses widen on higher employee costs (cbsnews.com)
• Yelp Long Hard Slog Local is Not Easy $YELP (financialskeptic.wordpress.com)
• Yelp Reports $27 Million In Quarterly Revenue But Higher Loss (marketingland.com)
• Yelp lost money in IPO quarter, but brought in 66 percent more cash (mercurynews.com)

The common misconception is that optimizing a site is a one shot effort. Once you have your title tags taken care of you can dust off your hands and watch the cash roll in. The reality of the situation is that new competitors are always coming online. People search differently over time, and old competitors sharpen their digital skills to increase their competitive edge.

The internet is a dynamic, changing place to do business, but it has one thing in common with the real world: location, location, location. It is critical for websites to appear on page one of Google. If you really want success, you must be in one of the top three organic positions, as these spots receive 58.4 percent of all clicks from users, according to a recent study from Optify. An optimized site is on the first step towards your perfect internet location.

Location is only part of the battle, because monthly reporting by the SEO Agency of your choice really is battlefield intel. See how your site is performing. Where are your visitors going? What are they doing? Why aren’t they buying?!?! Your SEO reporting can tell you all of this. Without it, your website is a rudderless ship.

The infographic from Cisco came across my RSS feed this morning, and really made me think about the importance of reporting. Look at the estimated growth of digital traffic! Remember this is an estimate. It could be lower, but let’s be honest, it’s more likely to be bigger.

At MESH, we don’t just change some text and code on your site, charge you and arm and a leg, and walk away. We’re not simply your digital marketing agency, we’re your partner keeping you ahead of your competitors and in front of your customers.

Related articles

• SEOs, Matt Cutts Is Not The Devil, or Why We Have Nothing to fear from Proper SEO. (pangalacticdigital.com)
• Without CRO & On-Site Optimization, It’s Tempting to Abandon SEO (seomoz.org)
• SEO ‘important’ for business insurance holders (premierlinedirect.co.uk)
• 7 Ways to Use Visitor Intelligence in SEO & Marketing (searchenginewatch.com)
• Make Your Presence Known On The Web With SEO (ronmedlin.com)