Blog post titles must entice the potential reader to click.  But how can you also use your post “title tag” to get more search traffic?

This post is part of my Blog SEO series.  I’m learning myself about how to increase blog traffic by being conscious of how search engines process blog text and code.  While not an SEO expert, I’m reading and talking to them to learn.  And I’m sharing what I learn with you.

Blog Post Title, Title Tag, Hyperlink and Permalink

Let’s first get some terminology straight.

The blog post title is what you, the blogger, type into the title field, and also the title that the viewer sees for your post.  For example, the “title” of this post is Modify Blog Post Title Tags For Increased Search Traffic: Blog SEO Series.

The title tag is website code that describes your post’s title to search engines.  If you do not alter the title tag, the blog title you write will be the same as the post’s title tag.  In some blog software enhanced for search engine optimization, you may be able to customize the title tag.  WordPress.org has plugins and SEO-optimized themes which facilitate this.

Quite literally, title tag of a post is what the search engines sees between the code <title> and </title>.  You can see it too if you click View in your browser and then “Source” or “Page Source.”  The title tag of this post reads:  Modify Blog Post Title Tags For Increased Search Traffic.

A post’s hyperlink (called a permalink in WordPress) is the URL of the post.  Unless you really know what you are doing, do not modify this.  (Watch for a further post on this topic.)  If you change this in any way after the post is published, any prior links to the post are broken.  The hyperlink of this post is:  http://pegcorwin.com/2009/10/modify-blog-po…log-seo-series.

Rationale for Custom Title Tags

Users and search engines do not respond the same way.  Users like zippy, catchy, provocative titles.  Search engines like keyword-rich titles to use in indexing your contents.

The title tag is the most important factor on the post page to generate more search traffic.  As local SEO consultant Miriam Ellis says,  “The title tag is widely considered to be the strongest element on any page for informing Google as to the focus of that page.”

In What Blog Software Can You Customize A Title Tag?

If you are blogging on WordPress.com, you cannot customize your title tag.  You can only change the permalink.  (Blog post coming on this.)

Blogger/Blogspot blogging software does not have a visible field in its template to modify the title tage.  You have to venture into the code.  Here’s the Blogger help link on title tags. See also SEO for Blogger Title Tags by Tim Grice, SEOwizz.net.

If your WordPress.org blog theme is optimized for search, or if you use an SEO plugin for WordPress, you can customize the title tag to emphasize keywords.  This blog used the Thesis theme, and it is optimized for search.

Title Edits of High Profile Bloggers

Below are examples of how two high profile bloggers have edited their blog post titles to make the title tag more targeted for specific keyword phrases in search.

Problogger.com

post title: 11 Lessons I Learned Earning $119,725.45 from Amazon Associates Program
title tag: amazon-associates-tips

post title: ProBlogger.com is Live! JOIN with 1200+ Bloggers to Improve Your Blog
title tag: probloggercom-is-live

Copyblogger.com

post title: How One Smart Move Can Attract Constant Attention
title tag: attract-attention

post title: The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging
title tag: blogging-sins

In comparing titles and title tags of various posts, I note that some titles were edited and some were not.  To look for patterns, I checked the ten “recent posts” from DoshDosh.com and found that three were unchanged, while seven were edited.

post title: An Essential Marketing Principle:  Give Before You Get
title tag: give-before-you-try-to-get

post title: Twitter Marketing:  Why You Don’t Need to Mass Follow Users
title tag: twitter-marketing-mass-follow-users

post title: Ad Swaps: A Smart and Easy Way to Get Free Traffic
title tag: ad-swaps-to-get-free-traffic

post title: Building Complementary Services: A Powerful Long-Term Social Media Marketing Strategy
title tag: complementary-services-social-media-marketing-strategy

post title: The Most Powerful Way to Presell Any Product or Service
title tag: most-powerful-way-to-presell

post title: The Unhealthy Obsession With DoFollow Blog Links
title tag: obsession-with-dofollow-blogs

post title: 6 Fool-Proof Steps to Make More Money With Your Website
title tag: six-steps-to-make-more-money-with-your-website

not changed:

tell-people-what-you-want-them-to-do-for-you
marketing-your-website-without-search-engines
everyone-uses-the-internet-for-a-reason

Blog Post Title Editing Suggestions

These are my conclusions, based on the examples above and from reading the SEO experts:

1.  Change the word order to put important keywords at or near the start.

SEO expert Andy Beal: “…change the word order so that the beneficial keywords are closer to the beginning of the title (which is where Google prefers to see them). Here’s a before: “26 Free Tools for Buzz Monitoring.” And after: “Buzz Monitoring: 26 Free Buzz Tracking Tools.” (Notice I also added the keyword “buzz tracking” to the title).”Shorten long titles by removing subtitles or series titles, as in the elimination of “An Essential Marketing Principle” and subtitle in “probloggercom is live.”
Eliminate adjectives useful for marketing but unlikely to be used in a search query, as above in “unhealthy” “fool-proof” “smart and easy way.”

SEO pro Rand Fish:  “Clearly, using the keyword term/phrase as the very first words in the page title has the highest correlation with high rankings.”

SEO expert Tim Grice advises:  “If your keywords are at the end of your title tag, consider moving them to the front and making it the exact keyword phrase. The closer your keywords are to the beginning of your title tag, the greater importance Google gives them.”

SEO expert Andy Walls suggests the keyword phrase with a dash, and then either an appeal to self-interest, news or curiosity.

Wordstream recommends thus formula:  keyword, action word, keyword variation, as in “SEO Title Tag Formulas: How to Create High Performance Title Tags.”

2.  Consider adding keywords. Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim says “…look for opportunities to include additional keywords. Compare this before, and after post title. Before: “Ten Ways to Avoid a Google Reputation Management Nightmare.” After: “Ten Ways to Fix Your Google Reputation & Remove Negative Results.” Both are engaging, both convey the same meaning. Yet, the revised title removes keywords that are not likely to be Googled such as “avoid” and “nightmare,” while adding keywords that are searched often, such as “fix” and “remove negative results.”

3.  Strip down to your keywords, as in “amazon associates tips,”  “attract attention” or “blogging sins.”

4.  Make the title a coherent sentence or phrase that differentiates your page. Andy Walls has created a good video showing how your page title compares in search results, and how to make it stand out.

5.  Do not create a comma-separated list of keywords for your blog post title.

Wading into Title Tag Customization

Over the weekend, I decided to customize the title tags of the top posts on this blog.  I did some keyword searches related to each post to evaluate the keywords I had previously selected.  Here are the old public titles, followed by the new ones in the custom title tags, just for search engines:

post title: Meta-Post on 18 Online Marketing Techniques: My Internet Marketing Series
title tag: Web 2.0 Tools for 18 Online Marketing or Internet Marketing Techniques

post title: 46 Links on Local Online Marketing: Techniques to Promote Your Local Business
title tag: Local Internet Marketing: Techniques to Promote Your Local Business

post title: A MySpace Profile Page for Your Small Business? Intro, Video and 36 Links To Help You Market
title tag: A MySpace Profile Page To Help You Market Your Business or Brand

post title: What Advanced Google Analytics Tells Marketers, and What Questions To Ask Next
title tag: Google Analytics Goals, Segmentation, and Event Tracking for Marketers

post title: 34 Links on How to Promote Your Small Business on Facebook
title tag: Facebook for Business with a Facebook Profile Page

post title: 52 Links on Twitter for Business, with Brief Descriptions
title tag: Twitter for Business, Getting Followers and Twitter Marketing Tips

I have also made a note on my calendar to look at blog traffic in a month, to see if I observe an increase in traffic on those posts compared with the prior month.

Title Discrepancies

Be aware that when you change title tags on your blog posts, those tags are at times visible to readers.  For example, if you bookmark a post in Delicious, it’s the title tag that is bookmarked, not your display title.  That is also the title that shows up in search results.  And when someone clicks on your link, that is the copy that shows as the page title (in the upper left tab of your browser), at the same time the user sees your post title on the page.  Note these differences as you view this post.  These discrepancies can confuse readers.

Furthermore, if you are running Google Analytics, it gets tougher to count your page traffic over time.  You must add traffic on the old title and new title together to compute the total.

Peg’s Character Counting Tip

In order to check the character length of my title tags, I open Word and paste my tentative title into a blank document.  Then I use its “word count” feature to count the characters (including spaces.)  In Word version 2007, it’s under the Review tab.  In 2003, I seem to recall it was on the main title bar.    This way, I make sure my keyword-studded title tag is under the 60-70 characters that Google will display.

Other Posts in the Blog SEO Series

Stay tuned.  More posts coming in this series.

SEO Your Blog with Keywords: Blog SEO Series
Blog Post Titles for More Search Traffic: Blog SEO Series
Meta Descriptions for More Search Traffic?  Blog SEO Series
Blog Post Titles — Shall I Edit the Permalink?  Blog SEO Series

Another blogger’s related post:  SEO Title Tag Formula:  Create High Performance HTML Title Tags