Page Titles or “Title Tags” are small pieces of HTML code you can find in the source code of web pages.
They look like this:
<title>This Is A Title</title>
If you’re using the Chrome browser, you can find the source code of this page by pressing “Ctrl+U” or following these instructions.
This is the title of the page as chosen by the author or webmaster. It is displayed in the tab title of the browser you’re currently using and it’s also the name used when you bookmark a page.
This title is shown by search engines, like Google, within its search pages. A user, like yourself, can then use this page title to determine whether the linked-to page contains the information they are looking for.
If the text within the <title> tag for a page is “How to Get to Paris by Train (On a Budget)”, it’s safe to presume that the linked-to page contains information about how to travel to Paris cheaply.
How well you optimize this text determines how likely a person is to click the link to your page. The higher the likelihood that happens, the higher the opportunity to receive lots of traffic to that page from search engines.
Page titles should be kept short to avoid Google truncating the title and leaving out its most important parts. Titles should also be an accurate summary of the linked-to page — otherwise, visitors are more likely to leave the page as soon as they realize the content doesn’t match their needs.
Prominence of Targeted Keyword Phrases
Keyword prominence refers to how prominent your keywords are within key elements of your web page. Specifically, how close to the beginning of the page’s TITLE tag, heading tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.), and meta DESCRIPTION, your keyword phrase is placed. You should always put your most important keyword phrase at the very beginning of your TITLE, DESCRIPTION, and H1 and H2 tags. Also try to begin your first and last sentences of body copy with the important keyword phrases.
A site map is a visual or textually organized model of a Web site's content that allows the users to navigate through the site to find the information they are looking for, just as a traditional geographical map helps people find places they are looking for in the real world. A site map is a kind of interactive table of contents, in which each listed item links directly to its counterpart sections of the Web site. Site maps perform the same service that the layout maps in large shopping malls perform: without them, it is possible to explore a complex site by trial and error, but if you want to be sure to find what you're looking for, the most efficient way to do that is to consult a model of the resources available. If a Web site is small and uncomplicated, a site map may be unnecessary, just as a layout map may not be required for shoppers to find their way through small shopping malls.
ALT and META data
First, it’s important to specify the difference between “alt text” and “title text”. These are both image attributes. The “alt text” is, as its name implies, the alternate text attribute of the image tag. This alt tag is an HTML attribute that gets attached to image tags in order to provide a text alternative to images for search engines. The “title text”, on the other hand, is just a text attribute that provides more information about an image. Unlike alt text, this is not a ranking factor. Search engines and other machines have not yet reached the point where they can interpret images, so having these textual alt tags will help search engines to better process your web page. Alt tags aren’t one of the most significant ranking factors, but they are still important. If you have a webpage that’s much heavier on images than text, you should definitely make it a priority to have your alt tags in place.
Meta descriptions are the HTML summaries of your web page that appear in your code as well as on a search engine results page (SERP) right after the clickable length. They’re the short sentences (or paragraphs) that give you more information about what’s on the page.
Meta descriptions have been the subject of many debates over the years. Marketers tend to take one of three stances:
- Meta descriptions are just a nice little bonus; they do not have any function in SEO;
- Meta descriptions are very important, in fact they are ranking factors;
- Meta descriptions aren’t necessarily ranking factors, but they make your page look good on a SERP and help improve click throughs.
Technical SEO is defined by configurations that can be implemented to the website and server (e.g. page elements, HTTP header responses, XML Sitemaps, redirects, meta data, etc.). Technical SEO work has either a direct or indirect impact on search engine crawling, indexing and ultimately ranking. As such, Technical SEO doesn't include analytics, keyword research, backlink profile development or social media strategies.