The Most Common SEO Mistake of Company Websites.
One of the fun activities we do at our SEO Seminars is the “60-second Web-o-Rama.” During these 60 seconds one lucky (or unlucky) participant allows me to critique their website on the big screen, in front of everyone. I basically pretend like the participant is not in the room, and I ramble off what I think about the optimization of their site in a 60-second rant.
In over a year conducting these seminars (about 30 of them in total so far) I have noticed that the most common SEO mistake that people make is putting their company name as the first thing in their index Page Title Tag.
The index page (e.g. your home page) title tag (definition/description below) is your first and best chance to tell the search engines what your page is all about. Don’t use this as an opportunity to tell the search engine who you are (they already know that). A much more effective use of this precious real estate is to tell what you are and/or what products/services you offer.
The title tag is easily found by looking at the top-left of the browser. The above image is GoldenComm.com’s index page title tag.
Or, you could look at the HTML code… in this case, it looks like this:
<head>
<title>Strategic Website Design Firm and E-Commerce Website Company</title>
</head>
In general, page title tags should be 50-70 words and focused on your keyphrases (that includes spaces, btw). One more additional hint… every page of your website should have a different title tag (probably the second most common SEO mistake of company websites).
Now that you know… check out your company’s Index Page Title Tag and make the appropraite adjustment!