Changing Titles to Improve SEO Performance

Search professionals are fond of reminding us that SEO is an ongoing process.  In some ways, that’s an obvious proposition.  Adding new content, building new backlinks…  Those SEO staples are clearly not one-off affairs.

The idea of perpetually improving SEO isn’t limited to those obvious machinations, though.  The idea of changing title tags as a means of improving your site’s SEO is a perfect example on ongoing on-page improvement.

The underlying principle to this tactic is that by changing the titles you may be able to rank for different and/or the “right” keywords after making an adjustment.  Generally speaking, experts recommend revisiting the tags on pages (or sites, for that matter) that are significantly underperforming in hopes of breathing some life into them.  SEO Theory, for example, recommends changing “the titles on your least successful pages twice a year.”

Changing your title tags is an easy way to increase return on your already-made content investment.  It doesn’t require a webmaster to create anything “new” (other than the tags).

It is worth noting that title changes can result in short-term SERP drop-offs.  You may find yourself actually ranking lower for a particularly keyword after adjusting the title.  That drop, however, is often temporary.  After a few weeks pass, you should be “making a comeback” with respect to search engine performance.

A word of warning, though, it is possible to do more harm than good!  Sometimes, the changes actually create long-term SEO damage for the pages.  That’s why it makes sense to “test” adjustments on pages that aren’t performing well in the first place.  That undercuts any real risk associated with making adjustments.

One commenter explained how tag alterations, if not done correctly, may produce negative SEO repercussions, further demonstrating why you don’t want to “mess” with your top-performing pages:

If you made <title> changes without taking into consideration the page markup, internal anchor text leading to that page, etc., you may have changed the meaning of that page and disrupted the indexing routines. All you can do now is wait and see. Hopefully your titles did not become diluted with keywords or phrases that the page is not “naturally” optimized for.

If you’d like to give you’re disappointing page a boost, consider changing the tags in a manner consistent with its existing content.

The “Number One on Google” Lie

“If you read this post carefully, you’ll know how to be #1 on Google.”

I hope you didn’t believe that.  I hope you don’t believe anyone who claims to be able to help you lock down a #1 slot on Google for anything that matters.

The reason I hope you don’t believe the story is because you’ll be seeing it again and again from different people.  And if you fall for it, you’re going to end up losing money in the process.

It’s a popular scam carried out by countless “search engine optimization companies” who are far more adept at ripping people off than they are at helping anyone climb the SERPs.  They claim that they can get their clients into top slots and that can be very persuasive (especially to those who aren’t well-informed about SEO).  Unfortunately, it’s just not true.

First, no one knows what it takes to get to the top of the SERPs.  Google’s algorithm is more closely guarded than Colonel Sanders’ friend chicken recipe or the formula for Coca Cola.  Unless someone knows exactly how the engines work, there’s no way to make the guarantee honestly.

Second, no one knows what other sites are going to do.  Anyone who promises a certain SERP position is, in essence, claiming that they know what the competition will do in the future and how much your site needs to fend off their efforts.  Unless the SEO firm has Nostradamus on their team, that’s a ridiculous claim.

Third, read the fine print.  Those #1 promises are generally limited to the kinds of keywords that anyone could dominate with ten minutes worth of effort.  They aren’t applied to the kind of search terms people are actually using.  If the firm assures #1s for the “big fish”, you shouldn’t hold your breath waiting for them to make good on the promise.

The kind of outfits who make those outlandish promises don’t just fall short of snagging top positions.  They also have a nasty tendency to use practices that the search engines don’t appreciate.  These lousy providers are more likely to do long-term damage to your site than they are to vault it into a top position for a competitive keyword.

SERPS and Other Traffic Attractors

Moving to the top in search engine results pages (SERPS) is a way to attract more traffic and potential customers to your website. It all starts with the basic strategy of optimizing keywords and keyword phrases to attract the search engines.  But don’t mistake a high page rank according to SERPS as the best or only way to increase traffic.

SERPS are just one way to bring in traffic, but search engines themselves are more focused in evaluating your content to ensure relevancy, depth, and continual refreshment of content than just directing traffic to you. That’s what they are really starved for and websites that offer all of this will rise quicker in the SERPS. And that’s why you need to have a multi-faceted strategy to really succeed. Search engines will reward you for attracting traffic in a variety of ways.

Capitalizing on content is a great way to optimize your search results and gain those relevant clicks that are most likely to convert to paying customers. Read more