When recently speaking with a client about their title tags, what they do, how you find them, and what Google does with them it dawned on me that most people don’t really know why title tags are so important to your orthodontic or dental websites.   So let’s just hit the basics so you know enough to know if your title tags might need a tune up.

First of all you should know how to find your title tags.  Go to your website and look at the very top of your web browser.  Here you will see a list of words or hopefully a compelling sentence with keywords in it.  If you are having trouble seeing what I’m talking about right click on your website and select “view source” and you will see a bunch of code.  In the code you will see <title> followed by some words and closed with </title>.  The key for you is to know that this information is extremely important for Google, Yahoo! and Bing to know what your website is all about.  It is also the text used in the search results that you click to go to that site.

This means you want the title tag to not only have keywords you want to be found with but also be somewhat compelling to help get people to click through to your site.  The best way to make this effective and not overwhelming is to have each page on your site focused on a keyword or keyword phrase instead of just trying to stuff as many keywords in as you can.

Each page on your site can have it’s own title tag and each title tag should be about 65 characters long including spaces and punctuation with no more than 70 characters (Google is showing 70 for some sites).  That means you want each page on your site to have a clear title tag letting people and Google know what to expect on that page.  If you are talking about Invisalign on the page, make sure it’s in your title tag.  If Invisalign is not on the page, be sure you do not not have it in your title tag.  Starting to get the idea?

You can also consider things like search volume as you consider your title tags.   The term “orthodontist” in some local areas is getting more searches than “braces” so if you have to let some words go to fit into the 65 characters, let “braces” go before “orthodontist.”

Don’t worry about exactly what to put or in what order.  The key is for you to know enough to know if your title tags are done well or if they need to be updated.  If they need to be updated, remember that after 1-3 months of making changes and tracking results, your website provider should be done and you don’t want or need them messing around with them any longer – unless of course they are still not right and your results have gotten worse instead of better.  If that happens, find a new provider to help you.

That’s if for today.  Let me know your thoughts and comments by leaving them below.

Bye for now,

Brian