Title Tags Really do Work.

Author’s Note: Title tags are the simplest and easiest thing to change, and can literally be the most effective tool for getting your phone number into the hands of your potential clients.

Title Tags

Most people (realtors included) mistake web site pages for newspapers. Simple 2 dimensional documents that have text and pictures on a single layer. What you see, is what you get. If you believe that, you’re missing out on 90% of the opportunity to make your web pages work for you.

Web pages are three dimensional. In simple words, information is stored behind the page that is sometimes visible to you, sometime visible to search engines, and sometimes visible to both of you at the same time. It’s very important to realize that your web page needs to be written not only for your intended audience, but for the search engines as well.

Title tags exist in 2 forms within your website. The first, and most important is the page <title> tag, which hides at the top of your web page. The second is the <alt> title tag.

For example:

<title> This is my web Site.</title>

Title tags do have a few rules as to what is right and wrong in terms of what you have between the title tags.

1. Include your Phone Number.
2. Keep it short and sweet, about 66 characters in length. In reality, most browsers will display 62 characters, and Google will display 66 when the web page is listed.
3. It can be longer, but don’t stuff key words into the decription. If the Google-Bot catches this, it will consider your site to be spam.

Not so good:

<title>Realtor Home Page</title>

Better:

<title>Bob Smith, Realtor (555) 555-5555</title>

Best:

<title>Bob Smith, Realtor | (555) 555-5555 <br /> Specializing In Vancouver
Real Estate and Condominiums</title>

To be avoided (may cause your site to be perceived as spam):

<title>Bob Smith, Realtor | (555) 555-5555 <br /> Specializing In Vancouver
Real Estate and Condominiums </br> House Condo Assignments Realtor realty investment</title>

So how do you edit your <title> tags?

If you are using RealtyFolio® software, you can edit the title tags for every section of your web site from the site administration panel. RealtyFolio® offers a full range of <title> controls, including auto insertion of text (article title, property address, city information), including title extensions for virtually every page component. Even if you choose not to create your own title information (you’re too busy), RealtyFolio will set the text for you.

If you are using a site built with traditional HTML, or from a template provider, you will need to access the website from an FTP program. Once you’ve downloaded the site, you can manually edit each page’s title in a program like notepad. This type of editing requires basic HTML skills. It’s not that difficult as long as you only edit the text between the <title> and </title> tags.

<alt> Title Tags

The alt attribute is used to describe the contents of an image file. It’s important for several reasons:

• Googlebot cannot read text embedded in images. Therefore, alt text is a useful way to give Google information about an image.
• Many people, for example users with visual impairments, or people who use screen readers, or have low bandwidth connections, cannot see images on web pages. Descriptive alt text provides these users with important information.

Not so good:

<img src="puppy.jpg" alt=""/>

Better:

<img src="puppy.jpg" alt="puppy"/>

Best:

<img src="puppy.jpg" alt="Golden Retriever puppy fetching a stick">

To be avoided (may cause your site to be perceived as spam):

<img src="puppy.jpg" alt="puppy dog baby
dog pup pups puppies doggies pups litter puppies dog retriever
 labrador wolfhound setter pointer puppy jack russell terrier
puppies dog food cheap dogfood puppy food"/>

We recommend testing your content by using a text-only browser such as Lynx.

Alt title tags can also be used to describe the content of a link. With platforms like RealtyFolio® software, the <alt> attribute is dynamically generated for every link created by the web site. It also offers youthe ability add extensions to the auto-generated content.

Titles and <alt> attributes can be best described as Step One of Making a Google Friendly web site. I’ll be posting more on this in the near future.

Examples and excerpts courtesy of Google.