<h1>Search Engine Optimization - Title Tag</h1>

Of all the html tags why do we give such importance to the <title> tag? Why is the <title> tag so important to search engines? What criteria do search engines use when indexing web pages? Let's take a look at some of the answers.

<strong>Title Tag Importance</strong>
One reason why the title tag is so important for search engine optimization is that the web page title provides a direct link of relevance for search query. When a user enters a search for your targeted keyword the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) will display the most relevant pages.

If we think of Search Engines in terms of a database, to quicken the search speed the search engines place an index on the title field. Meaning that the search term will be searched through the titles first, result in a significant speed increase. Otherwise the search engine will search the whole database for search term matches and releance.

<strong>Placement of Title Tag</strong>
The <title> tag is usually one of the first tags a search engine spider reads, after the document declaration, <html> and <head> tags. Our goal is for the <title> tag to be the first tag after the <head> tag.

<strong>Keyword Prominence</strong>
Exactly where is the keyword or keyword phrase positioned in the <title< tag? This will determine the prominence of the keyword or keyword phrase. What is prominence and why is it important? Keyword prominence is a measure of importance that relates to the position of the keyword to the beginning of the <title> tag.

Prominence is measured as a ratio or percentage. Factors that measure the ratio are the position of the keyword, the number of words in the keyword or phrase , and the total number of words in the title tag. For example <title>Keyword1, word2 word3 word4</title> would result in a keyword prominence of 100%. To calculate the ratio/percentage we know the number of keywords present in the title tag is one and the total number of words is four, so one divided by four = 25%. The prominence ratio allocation would look this <title>100%, 75%, 50% 25%</title>. In this example the keyword prominence is 100%.

<strong>Keyword Density</strong>
What's the percentage or ratio in which your keyword or keyword phrase appear in the title? Keyword density is the total number of keywords or total number or words in a phrase divided by the total number of words in the <title> tag. If our keyword phrase is NASCAR Racing and the title of our web page is Today's NASCAR Racing News the formula to calculate keyword density is 2 divided by 4 = 50%, reduce to the title to NASCAR Racing News and the keyword density becomes 67%.

Optimizing keyword density can be a Catch 22. Sure we want the highest keyword density possible so Search Engine Indexers will rank the web page higher. However, we do not want to raise the red flags of the Search Engine's Indexing program and be banned from spamming or keyword stuffing.

<strong>Keyword Frequency</strong><br /> How many times does your keyword appear in the <title> tag? Count them, this will be your keyword frequency. Pretty simple to calculate. More importance is place on keywords that have a higher frequency. However, do not get carried away like keyword density you do not want to be banned for spamming keywords.

<strong>Conclusion</strong><br /> There is no denying that the <title> tag is extremely important for search engine optimization. To benefit most with your title tags strive for the following: <ol> <li><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"><br /><html><br /><head><br /><title></title></li> <li>High Keyword Prominence</li> <li>High Keyword Density (without spamming)</li> <li>Hight Keyword Frequency (without spamming)</li> </ol> On page search engine optimization are elements that you can control on your web pages. Begin to take control by optimizing your keywords in the <title> tag. Good luck and happy optimizing.

About the Author:<br /> on-host.com is a source for online<br /> Tutorials and information on search engine optimization, web site promotion, and web scripting.
About the Author
About the Author:<br /> on-host.com is a source for online<br /> Tutorials and information on search engine optimization, web site promotion, and web scripting.