Title tags are one of the most important on site optimization factors that will help a web pages ranking in the SERP’s. It doesn’t take long to optimize a title tag and the long term results of doing so can be hugely beneficial. So put on your moon boots—we’re going exploring!

Keyword Research

The first place to start is with your keyword research. I like to “clusterize” my phrases which means to group like phrases together.

The short version of clusterizing your phrases is this:

1. Decide upon the main phrase of a web page or blog post
2. Type it into a keyword tool like freekeywords.wordtracker.com
3. Choose a handful of the most relevant phrases to be in the cluster

For a more in depth explanation on how to clusterize, read this post: Clusterize Your Phrases

Once you decide which cluster is assigned to the URL you are optimizing, then you are ready to create an effective title tag.

Title Tag Best Practices

At this point, I want to explain some “best practices” for title tag creation.

1. Prominence - Place your most important phrase closest to the beginning as possible.
2. Density and Long tail - Use long tail phrases and/or a combination of phrases within the cluster to help increase density of main phrase as well as help the page rank for long tail phrases
3. Use plurals and singulars where applicable
4. Realize that the longer the title tag, the more diluted the strength of each word becomes

Let me give you an example that keeps all four points from above in mind. Lets look at a blog post that talks about a forex trading course.

At the time of this writing, the title tag is “Forex Course – Forex Trading Courses – Easiest Forex Course Videos”.

Here is the cluster of phrases that I chose to rank this page for:

1. Forex course
2. Forex courses
3. Forex trading course
4. Forex trading courses
5. Forex course videos
6. Easiest forex course
7. Easiest forex course videos

As you can see, I put the main phrase of the cluster first to give it the most prominence.

I used two of the sub phrases from the cluster which, in one way or another, includes all of the words from each of the seven phrases in the cluster. Doing that increases my keyword density for the main phrase “forex course” and helps me rank for the sub phrases at the same time.

I used both singular and plural for the word “course”. Wordtracker showed me that “course” was searched for more than “courses” and so that is why I placed the singular version first—to give the higher search volume phrase the most prominence.

I limited this title tag to just 3 phrases so as not to dilute the density of every phrase included. I typically don’t do more than 3 phrases in a title tag.

Take Aways

Keep all these factors in mind when you are creating your title tags for every single page. And yes, every page should have its own unique title tag. Also, realize that these are just guidelines. Every phrase has different amounts of competition and there is no set way that works the best in all situations. Sometimes I find that one or two phrases works best and other times I use four or five. The only way to know is to test. Analyze your competition to ideas? Yes…and then test.

Let me say it again in bold, you should always test different title tags to help rankings improve. If you tweak a title tag and your ranking drops, you can always change it back to the original title tag and get your rankings back as soon as the Search Engines re-index the page.

One last thing.

After all this talk about testing different title tags, don’t get too obsessed. You ABSOLUTELY need to focus on BUILDING LINKS TO THIS PAGE. No amount of title tag tweeks will get you to the #1 spot without link building.