If you are a search engine optimization beginner a great place to start is with your site’s page titles. Please make note right now that SEO is a process of many components, not just one or more “tricks” to rank better. Page titles are very important to aiding in a better ranking from Google, Yahoo or MSN but they are not a magic wand (nothing is!). I can’t count how many times a potential client has complained of their lack of traffic from search engines, but then doesn’t even have a unique page title for their websites home page. Below is the classic “home” tag, showing they have done nothing with their page titles.

So lets break down the almighty page title and what you can do with it.

What is a page title and where is it?
The page title is the summary of what your web page is about. There is one for every page of your website located in your code and near the top.

Each page title should summarize that page’s content (which should be your targeted keywords). If you use a content management solution, it should have access to the page properties to complete this information for each page (Our CMS does). If you work with a web company, make sure completing the page titles and meta data is part of their service proposed. Also make sure they don’t talk about meta tag keywords for hours …. that’s a bad sign.

Why is the page title so important?
The page title has two jobs in todays world of search. First it is the summary of the pages content and the engines greatly consider the words in your title for their algorithms. The engines take this summary and use it to help them figure out what your web page is about. They will only pay attention to so many characters in your page title so you need to be brief and truly target what that page is about. Stuffing your page title with 30 words will do you no good. A few good rules of thumb are 4 to 8 words or under 65 characters including spaces. Below is the example of our home page’s page title. We are targeting “Minnesota Web Design” more than anything, it’s who/what we are, so those words appear first (left).

(ps- this is a competitive term and we will need some time to gain rankings on it)

This page title contains our main service, who we are and further down hits upon our secondary service (Internet marketing). Some people will put their name first, but I choose to place more importance on the targeted term for SEO as your business name is the easiest to get a top ranking for (almost always).

Here is another example for a Minneapolis plumber who has done the job of page title correctly.

It doesn’t hurt that their name includes major keywords they are targeting of Minneapolis (location) and Plumbing (service). You can see from above that their page title uses their location targeted twice, implying both “Minneapolis “and even using “minneapolis metro” to show they do the suburbs and area around the city.

Secondly is that the page title is what appears in the search engine result pages. Here is how the Minneapolis Plumbing example appears above in Google for a search of minneapolis plumber. They are the #1 organic web result.

The page title is what searchers see first and use heavily to determine if they will click that link. Building a page title that can rank you well is great, but you should also consider how it reads once displayed.

What should you consider when writing page titles?
1. Your page title should summarize the pages content, links and photos/graphics
(If it doesn’t, then realize your content needs to be more search friendly structured)
2. The main keywords you are trying to rank for that is your service or product
3. The main area, location or city you want to target. Location, location, location.
4. Most important words to the left.
5. Be brief, you only have 4 to 8 words or 65 characters.
6. Make sure it reads well and makes sense to a search engine user
7. Mix in your company name whenever possible, its good branding.
8. Lose the marketing words like “greatest, trusted, perfect”. Wasted characters.
9. Use dividers like pipes | or dashes – where needed to separate information
10. Most important – Write a unique and relevant page title for EACH page on your website!

In the weeks upcoming you can expect more basic SEO tips to learn more on picking which keywords to target, proper content structure, link building and more.

Here are some additional valuable posts on website page titles:

• Page Title Best Practices from SEOmoz
• Webtacs Video on Page Titles

Winning online is something I talk about a lot with clients. In looking at things like an Olympic track and field event, your website has to win a combination of heats to get to the medal round and then capture the ultimate goal, the gold medal. Online, that gold medal is the customer … and that can be their trust, their time, their communication or their money. Here is a short summary of just some of the heats you need to win to get to the medal round, but keep in mind they all play off each other to create success.

Heat 1: Getting Customers To Your Site
What are your strategies to move people to your website? SEO, Google Adwords, email marketing, local search marketing, banner ads and inbound links are all ways to push users to your website. Offline is important as well, placing your web address on all your materials and finding ways to include your website as a step in working with you or the end result. More than anything, you can’t afford to just rely on one of the strategies I mentioned, you need to leverage a team of them together.

Heat 2: Search Engine Results, SEO
It’s the race to be ranked. Good site structure, content, trusted inbound links and a good page title are just some of the pieces to get you into the race for great search terms with your competitors. Make sure you are in this race by utilizing good search engine optimization (SEO) practices. If you choose to ignore organic search results, you won’t be anywhere near the finish line.

Heat 3: Design of Your Website, Make a First Impression
What is or isn’t great web design, is always up for debate. You can’t ignore the value of a professional web design, properly coded and constructed to produce a clean, easy to use interface for your website. While it is cheaper for the kid next door to put something together for you, it is expensive to lose this race repeatedly because your quality, experience and trust never connect with the customer.

Heat 4: Website Content: Less Fluff, More Good Stuff
You land them on your site, your design and layout is trust worthy and inviting … now they want answers. Explain what you can do for them, give them examples of how you’ve helped others, product reviews, needed details, relevant photos or graphics. If you answer their questions and educate them, you win their trust … you win them. The web is increasingly going the route of full disclosure, giving as much information to the customers so they can make a decision in their comparison is a must.

Medal Round – A Clear Path, Website Usability
I touched on it a little in heat #2, a website that is easy to use is often a winner. Don’t loose customers, don’t confuse them and don’t make them think. Just provide easy next steps to get them to the end goal they desire (which is usually your goal as well). Clear navigation, content funneling, well placed anchor text and call to action buttons/graphics should all be in the mix here. You should also employ various web analytics and reporting tools to identify roadblocks or patterns as you can always fix things and try new routes.

If you’ve won these heats in any order, you most likely have won the gold medal and earned that customer. They found you, moved through your site and gained answers and insight to how you can help them with their need, problem or question. You funneled them to the goal and they bought your product, filled out an online form, signed up for an account or even called you. Enjoy your moment on the podium.

I thought I would share with you a simple overview of some of the tools I use when presenting a web design proposal to a client. While each situation can involve much more complex communication, examples and conversation … these basics are pillars of my presentation. Also consider in 90% of cases I am presenting in person and when at all possible in our office. In the case of national clients, I will jet to see them depending on the budget and scope. Personal interaction is still king for me.

The goal is to build the clearest picture possible of what I have recommended for their website based on their needs and communication. A discovery meeting or information exchange has taken place prior to this presentation meeting. I’m presenting a fixed cost web proposal … I better have done my homework!

Written Proposal
You can easily get by on just this, but in any case you must have this. Do people crazy people, do work via verbal anymore? Yikes. Over the years my web design proposals have increased in pages and details as I have learned a lot from each time I present (Still do!). Most website proposals now are 11 pages and follow the following outline:

1. Cover page – a bit of design, contact info and personalized to the client (make an impression)
2. Intro letter – a general welcome and introduction with 3 to 5 major overview points
3. Components – overview of our SMC content management tool and stat tools (non man hour items)
4. Scope Hours – breakdown of time and inclusions for services like design, programming, seo, content, etc.
5. Scope Solution – outline of website functionalities and SMC plug-ins, what can the site do! (front & back)
6. Page Structure – outline of recommended page structure, nav type/locations and page names
7. Managed Services & Timeline – hosting specs, support, back-up and predicted project completion timeline
8. Solution Pricing – outline of each service type in line items; design hours, programming hours, seo hours, etc.
9. Terms & Conditions – payment schedule, training inclusions, limitations of scope/project, client requirements
10. Relationship – Project process and expectaitons, managed service inclusions, support process
11. References – We usually highlight 3 to 5 projects we have completed and a few notes on their inclusions

It’s pretty detailed and clients always appreciate that. Walking them through it all builds clarity on both sides which creates happiness.

Presentation Screen
Anything 26″ and bigger works for me. We use a 32 inch LCD. Crowding around a laptop is not a great way to showcase/demo the great things you have done for past projects. Give your work a bigger stage and let them see the details clearly. This large screen allows me to easily demo our content management tool (SMC), show our design capabilities and demo similar or exact functionalities to what we are recommending and discussing. Showing examples on top of your documentation or within builds a complete and accurate picture.

Whiteboard
Don’t you just love the smell of markers in the morning? Sorry … Anyway, sketching out possible layouts and user paths is most common for me. You can see your clients “get it” whith this tool and sometimes they even grab the marker and show you a thing or two. I often wish I had a collapsible whiteboard in my pocket for when I get hit up in random Q & A situations. Whiteboards rock.

Laptop
While I never try to use this as my presentation screen, there are handy documents, graphs, reports and other examples within a click or two on my laptop. Especially with SEO, I like to be able to show them ranking reports, factors and other data to support what I am recommending.

Thanks to the hundreds of clients I have presented to over the years. You all have taught me something and the biggest thing is that I really enjoy teaching you what I know. Does anyone have any tools or ideas to add?

Combine veteran business bloggers, business blogging newbies and those considering blogging with good pizza and an open forum and you have the recipe for some great sharing and blogging tips. Tonight was the 2nd meeting of the Biz Bloggers Meetup group started by blogging pro Caroline Melberg and about 16 great business people attended.

(photos taken with my Treo)

The mix of online experience and industries represented made for good conversation as we focused on blog content development and where to get blog post topics and ideas from. New bloggers talked about some of their early success stories and how some of their “fears” were easily overcome while blogging veterans gave pointers on strategies and creative angles to develop content. We also dipped into how to make time and properly plan your blogging.

I wanted to give some link love and attention to those in attendance. It was cool to see so many taking notes and soaking up knowledge while sharing their questions, fears or challenges. Below are some of the groups members currently business blogging, so check them out:

• Mitch Rossow who is a web designer and has a cool Minneapolis photo blog
• Caroline Melberg who is a small business marketing maverick (group organizer)
• Chris Mitchell has a small business marketing blog.
• Toni Haselfeldt who blogs for her client Belladerm Med Spa (I helped Toni and Belladerm set-up their website and blog at my former agency)
• Janet Roper who is an animal communicator and even can blog about rats as pets!
• Chad Sharp owns a Minneapolis record label and blogs on independent music

In addition to those blogging was the following companies there to learn more as they consider or start blogging for business including Bebe Bella Designs, Nextstep, Still Pond Shiatsu, Image In Nation, Porte-Kim Agency and Sundberg Chiropractic. Hopefully we’ll see these local businesses blogging soon. I hope I didn’t miss anyone!

If you’re interested, sign-up for the group and learn of the next meeting. One of the things I love about most experts in Internet marketing is their willingness to share. I also value the networking, the different viewpoints and questions of new bloggers as they are always sharing new ways to look at things.

Thanks to Jason in our office for sending me this link, I was made aware of Woopra. Watch the video embedded below.

GBTV #337 | Introducing Woopra from Neal Campbell on Vimeo.

Woopra is a new robust web-tracking & analytics tool. Currently in BETA, it’s mainly targeted for small to medium websites. Watching the video above you’ll see that it allows real-time stats in a fabulous interface, pushing some extensive data on the users visiting and moving around your site. Woopra features also include real-time chat with your visitors, visitor tagging and activity search. Small e-commerce websites should be lining up to get a version of this.

The killer part? Woopra would like to provide their service for FREE. The bad news is that while they figure out how to properly scale it, you need an invite to put it to use. A service like this will obviously spark some privacy issues, but I think that’s always a good thing for discussion sake. For those of you begging for more data and visibility into your websites performance, this seems like a winner.

I’ll keep you posted (so you should subscribe) on this web analytics tool being available to the masses for sure.