in: SEO
by: Katie Hellmuth Martin
Do you want sales from people searching Google and other search engines? Do you just know that if the right people found your website, that they would buy what you sell? Good news! There are specific and easy-enough-to-do-on-your-own edits you can make to your website today that can help increase your traffic and your sales. Here are are some of my favorites:
HOW ARE YOU ATTRACTING YOUR CUSTOMERS?
You may be answering: "Google Ad!" or "Twitter!" or "I emailed everyone I know!" All of these answers are effective, yet do not carry the same level of impact of this tool I am about to tell you about. The strategy I am about to point out to you is the most important, yet least understood by most business people. And yet, it is the easiest change you can make to your website - ever...
THE PAGE TITLE
I am talking about the Page Title, sometimes known as the "Meta Tag Title," or simply "Title". Simply put, this is the title of a web page that you publish on your website, or any other website. But for many businesses, this title is blank, or says the company name on every single page. And that my friend, is a big mistake, huge missed opportunity, and costing you free listings in search engines because the search engine read a title that didn't tell it much at all about a specific page of your website.
SHOULD ALL WEB PAGES ON A WEBSITE HAVE THE SAME TITLE?
No. Page titles should all be different. If you sell products from your website, then this title is usually the name and color of your product. If it's the page of your website that lists all styles on one page, this page will also have its own title. Titles are different from one another. You have different pages for a reason - they are written about different things. Therefore, your page Titles should be different as well, and reflect only what is written about on the particular page.
WHAT DO THESE TITLES LOOK LIKE?
Page Titles are the blue link in Google and other search engines. They are pulled from your website and listed like this. I ran a search for "disposable wine glasses stylish", and got the below results:
Google and other search engines "pull" a Title from your website and display it prominently in their search listing results. They also pay close attention to the words in that title, so if the words aren't there for is being sold on a page, then that page won't get included in very good listings (aka, it won't "rank" very well).
Here's a diagram of where you can see the Page Title on your website - it's not very obvious and is sometimes only displayed in your browser bar. In the below example, the page is a "category page". The page is listing all of the products that the website sells that has to do with disposible wine glasses. This is a very SEO-friendly page because it has so many links to different pages that offer simular items. The words "Disposable Wine Glasses" below the images are automatically being pulled into the Page Title above.
NOW COMES THE FUN PART - SPICE UP YOUR PAGE TITLES
In the above example, it is very possible that the category name called "Disposable Wine Glasses" that you see under the images is being automatically pulled into the main Page Title, that you see in the search results in my ealier example. However, most website back-ends let you change the Page Title to whatever you want.
Why would you want to do this? Not all titles are the same. You can have a run-of-the-mill title of a web page, or you can spice it up. The Title gets the most attention by Google when people are searching for things. Mathematically, it carries a lot of weight. But for real people reading it, this can be a make or break moment for if they click on your page.
Look at the below example. Which one appeals the most to you if you typed in the search "disposable wine glasses stylish"?
Bingo. Probably the one that starts with "Disposable". Each of these pages at different wine glasses are targeting different customers. The first is targeting those looking for "cheap wine glasses". The third isn't targeting customers at all - it's a press page (look at the green link that ends in /press.html).
You can see that at any time, you can edit your Page Title to attract the customer you want by changing a few words.
FATAL FLAW #1
Before you go changing all of your page titles, I want to point out one thing that most business owners don't consider: press pages are very SEO friendly. They are long pages of content that talk about something in particular, and usually link to the press pages at a media outlet. This is all very SEO-friendly because of the natural writing and linking going on. However, the press page is not the main sales page. In the case of GoVinoWine, their press page ranks, and guess what - they have made the fatal flaw of not changing any of their page titles!
FATAL FLAW #2
GoVinoWine does sell wine glasses directly from their website - but that ecommerce page is not ranking here in my search results. Why? Take one guess. Yup, you guessed it - the page title doesn't have the word "wine glass" or "wine glasses" in it. It just says "shop govino"!
Argggggh! Bummer!
Missed sales opportunity. A few little tweaks to the copy could change all of that, and start a new sales stream.
So are you ready to make changes and increase sales? Tweet me at @kjpixelated and @TinShingle and tell me about it!
