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Re: Good page titles - friendly SEO

for

From: ckrugman@sbcglobal.net
Date: Jan 20, 2010 1:09PM

Yes, I agree and will frequently rename my book marks to make them more
relevant.
Chuck
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Henderson" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 2:45 AM
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Good page titles - friendly SEO


>I totally agree about taking the domain name or company name into account,
> Chuck. I generally do this for familiar searches however, where I don't
> have
> sufficient experience to choose one over another using those criteria.
>
> That said, I actually do prefer to see a company name in a title for the
> same reasons, but generally if it is company I am not familiar with.
> Otherwise, I find myself manually removing the company name from bookmarks
> that I make from a website regularly (likely because I will have a folder
> named accordingly, anyways). I particularly use domains to filter results
> that I will never click on, such as those annoying listing directories
> (particularly the ones that dynamically capture your search query to
> appear
> relatively useful) ... who wants to return a search listing from a search
> listing? Kinda defeats the point .... thankfully, once you become familiar
> with the main ones, you can dismiss them in an instant. I would prefer
> them
> not to be listed at all though.
>
> Steven
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of
> <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Sent: 20 January 2010 10:28
> To: WebAIM Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Good page titles - friendly SEO
>
> I actually prefer the name of the company or web site in title as if I
> bookmark the page or choose to go there I want to know whose site it is.
> There are some companies that I don't patronize for political reasons and
> I
> will most likely look at the web address to ascertain the domain name of
> the
>
> site or what company it belongs to.
> Chuck
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steven Henderson" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> To: "'WebAIM Discussion List'" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Sent: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 1:55 AM
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Good page titles - friendly SEO
>
>
>> Hope people don't mind me bringing up a previous post, but I was
>> interested
>> in what Geof Collis was saying about using search engines, particularly
>> the
>> following:
>>
>> "Personally long titles don't bother me as a screen reader, the more
>> descriptive the better and I really don't need any company names
>> cluttering
>> up the beginning of it, its easy enough to find out the company's name
>> from
>> the site if I need to."
>>
>> "When I get to the page I start with my JAWS heading commands, if I cant
>> find it that way then I use the on screen find function, type in some
>> words
>> that were relevant and go from there."
>>
>> If a page title is giving a page most of it's SERP weight, as opposed to
>> the
>> page content or external reference, then I can see how on many occasions
>> the
>> SEO developer is going to have a tough job attracting click-through
>> against
>> competitors who's titles can be more attractive thanks to the lower SERP
>> weight of the page title itself.
>>
>> This is where I am getting frustrated with the page title. I use the page
>> title a lot for saving pages and bookmarks (I recall somebody else
>> mentioning this point too - apologies for not recalling who it was) so am
>> really annoyed at how in most cases, I will need to compromise the page
>> title because of client's expectations of the page title in SEO.
>>
>> For example,
>>
>> Searching for 'vintage wine' in Google returns vintagewinegifts.co.uk as
>> the
>> first result. It happens to have a horrible page title: "Vintage wine
>> gifts.
>> Fine & Rare wine gifts. vintage wine, port, champagne, cognac, Armagnac".
>>
>> I myself wouldn't want to click on it personally, even if it is the
>> highest
>> ranking SEO result. Great for SERP, but a monster of a page title in my
>> browser bookmarks or history. However, antique-wine.com is second in the
>> SERP and comes across considerably more appealing and makes me want to
>> click
>> it, using the title: "The Antique Wine Company".
>>
>> Surprise, the page title matches just one of the SEO keywords, likely due
>> to
>> other on-page or external SEO weight, but something I can definitely
>> bookmark, and more likely candidate to persue.
>>
>> Am I being too picky? Do I undervalue the SERP description because of a
>> badly received SERP title? Do I have to put up with it, because my client
>> website requires that god-awful SEO title?
>>
>> I am very interested in people's comments on my ranting.
>>
>> Steven
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> At 08:47 AM 10/14/2009, you wrote:
>>>Hi Geof,
>>>
>>>When you say you 'like the title to match the content heading' do you
>>>actually find that to be the case of most websites? As I don't recall
>>>that
>>>to be the case and am presently of the opinion that would be duplicate
>>>content (in so far as sifting through all the other content on a given
>> page,
>>>that also wants my attention).
>>>
>>>In your case, if I were to place the main heading (which is perhaps
>>>'similar' to the page title) at the top of the page, would it really be
>>>inconvenient that it differ from the title? And what if I place a few
>>>quick
>>>links above that too, one of which linked to the main content? In the
>>>case
>>>of a heading being identical to the page title, would you not prefer that
>>>there was no heading and could get straight to the main content directly
>>>(effectively treating the page title as your page heading)?
>>>
>>>
>>>Steven
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>>>[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Geof Collis
>>>Sent: 13 October 2009 16:25
>>>To: WebAIM Discussion List
>>>Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Good page titles - friendly SEO
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>At 05:31 AM 10/13/2009, you wrote:
>>> >I'm interested in people's feedback on page titles and how when written
>> for
>>> >SEO rankings, affect usability ... my humble opinion is that high
>>> >ranking
>>> >page titles are generally too long and unfriendly for me as a visual
>> user,
>>> >and wonder if this is even more of a problem for the visually impaired
>>> >or
>>> >blind user.
>>>
>>>Hi Steven
>>>
>>>Personally long titles dont botehr me as a screen reader, the more
>>>descriptive the better and I really dont need any company names
>>>cluttering up the beginning of it, its easy enough to find out the
>>>company's name from the site if I need to.
>>>
>>>Perhaps its just me but when I search I like the title to
>>>match the content heading it speeds things up for me. When I find
>>>the search item that best describes what I searched for I want to go
>>>to the site and hit the heading tab until I get the corresponding text.
>>>
>>>cheers
>>>
>>>Geof
>>>
>>>
>>>Editor
>>>Accessibility News
>>>www.accessibilitynews.ca
>>>Accessibility News International
>>>www.accessibilitynewsinternational.com
>>>
>>>
>>>