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Despite the old adage, it’s fair to say that most of us often choose a book by its cover. First impressions reign king in our busy world – where we are inundated with choices.

What’s interesting, though, is how very little thought goes into the first impression a Web site may make. Though it can vary, one of the primary introductions users have to a Web site is within the search results. It’s a common behavior. Users perform a search, quickly scan the result set and generally make a choice on what site to visit based off the limited information that is displayed.

Countless usability studies performed here in the Bridgeline Denver offices confirm this – time and time again we see users perform a search, quickly scan the titles of each page and generally gravitate toward a page that is toward the top of the results with the most relevant title.

Hence the title of this blog post – writing digestible, relevant titles is key to a public Web site’s success.

Why is the page Title important?

Two reasons: Your user and the engines. As I noted above, users clearly rely on a page’s Title to make choices within the sea of search results. Providing a Title that is easy to read, easy to understand AND relevant for that user should always be your primary goal.

But…the search engines also rely on this field to understand what a page is about and establish that page’s position within search results connected to specific keywords and phrases.

How can I write good page Titles?

Our experience has shown that a few key steps can ensure your page Title helps drive user behavior and increase your position within search engines. The first step down this road involves research and answering a few questions:

1. How established is your brand? Do people recognize you online? Can your brand strength help drive decisions?

2. What is your audience searching for? What specific terms and phrases do they use connected to your products/services/mission?

3. What are the demographics of your audience? How do they most likely digest information?

Admittedly, these can be difficult questions to answer – but they’re imperative. Understanding how users interact with information connected to you will be the leading driver in creating solid page Titles for both your users and the engines.

Now what?

Now the writing begins – and there is not a one-size-fits-all solution here. For some SEOs, Titles are like religion – they follow one mantra and their ability for change is limited. Your audience, your brand, your message – this is all specific to you. Your page Titles should be as well.

A search for ‘Book’ in Google brought back over a billion related pages. Look at the three below.

Note: The examples above do not represent the top three searches attached to 'Book' - rather they are intended to show different approaches attached to page Titles.

The Title for the first example (Google Books Home – Google Books) is clear – Google is leveraging their brand here and providing a pretty easy to read Title. However, someone unfamiliar with Google Books may not understand they can view digital versions of thousands of books. Maybe ‘Google’s Library of Free Digital Books – Google Books’ would be an improvement here.

The Title for the second example (Barnes & Noble – Books, Textbooks, Used Books, DVDs, Music, Toys …) is certainly relevant and does a good job of quickly telling me what this page will offer. Like the first result, Barnes & Noble is leveraging their brand effectively. They take the effort one step further, clearly describing the products a user will find when visiting the site. It could certainly be argued that audiences do better with a Title that more closely follows standard sentence structure, but this title is nevertheless easy to understand and effective.

The Title for the third example (Main Page – Gutenberg) could definitely use some help. Users unaware of Project Gutenberg would be unable to understand – without reading the description that follows – what this site offers. ‘Free Electronic Books from Project Gutenberg’ would be a step in the right direction here – helping to clarify for the user what the site is and how it could be relevant to them.

Some core things to follow when writing your page Titles:

1. Make it readable. Too often companies make the mistake of stuffing as many keywords into the Title as they can. Remember, your users are reading this to determine if they want to visit your site.

2. Explain your page – using the keywords your users use. Your homepage Title should describe your site; interior pages and product pages should describe the content on those individual pages.

3. If you have a strong brand – use it.