Author: Nancy McCord

Well if you did not think that what you put in the source code title tag is not all that important you need to think again.

I am doing some testing and have spun off a mini website from my main website that has a very narrow focus. The focus is on custom web design and fast web design for our Quick Launch template web design product. You can visit our sister site at http://www.McCordWebDesign.com. This site was launched on November 2 and is already in the SERPS. In fact it has garnered number one Google placement on the term top recommended web design company and that is in the global market out of 28,700,000 listings.

The match to the search query and what is in the title tag is almost exact. Give me a title and I’ll put it in the code and in two weeks, I’ll have top placement on those keywords too! My title tag in the source code for this mini site is: custom web design custom website design custom web designer top recommended web design company. I am even trying to break up my phrases with ‘s to see if this will out perform a simple targeted list of keywords not separated by commas.

As you can see from my initial finding, having a close if not identical match on a keyword phrase in your title tag will garner you top placement when you have no other site problems. In fact the standard length of the title tag is 80 characters, but you can see the search engines actually spidered the full content even though it was longer than the 80 characters. 80 characters will appear in the top browser screen, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go longer or that engines won’t spider it.

So give me a phrase by leaving a comment, it has to be on web design though as that is what my site is about and I’ll change my title tag and then report back to you in two weeks with my findings.

I am doing an SEO test on a few new techniques. As a result I have spun off a new sister website at http://www.mccordwebdesign.com with in-depth content only on custom web design and our fast web design program called Quick Launch.

I am evaluating a few new SEO techniques as well as getting ready to start a new blog Design-World Watch. This new blog will use Word Press as my platform instead of my typical Blogger platform. This will also allow me to very carefully evaluate the two platforms for ease of use, ability of customization, and organic search engine performance.

I’ll keep you posted as I roll out the new blog and get historical data on our new whitepaper in planning.

I’ve launched a new website in preparation for a new whitepaper on “SEO Tactics for the Real World”. The site is a spin-off my main website http://www.mccordweb.com/. The new site http://www.mccordwebdesign.com/ was done for several reasons.

I decided to test spinning off one of my core services into its own website with focused keyword dense content on the topics custom web design and fast or quick web design. I took my same design skin, but created new content, new meta tags, and meta descriptions. I am also trying a new technique on title tags with the new site http://www.mccordwebdesign.com/. I am trying to evaluate if it can help garner organic placement by one cross linking the sites and two if spinning off a site with more in-depth and unique content on a core business will get better organic search placement.

One of the other reasons I am doing the test is to closely evaluate a new web host. My main and very large (nearly 500 page website at http://www.mccordweb.com/) is hosted at http://www.hostway.com/. My new smaller keyword dense site is hosted at Network Solutions and is around 20 pages or so and very targeted on just one core business that I want top organic placement in a global arena versus just great placement in Maryland.

This new test may take six months to a year to evaluate, but click into my new spin-off site http://www.mccordwebdesign.com/ and take a look. You’ll find the same skin, but that is about it. The navigation is different, pages changed, additional content added on my topic, and new meta tags in place.

I’ll keep you posted on this one as it should be a very interesting project both for hosting and for SEO tactics.

By the way on the hosting issue, Network Solutions has passed with flying colors. The only thing that I still have a problem with is my database connection. I will blog about Network Solutions another time as I am sure you will find my comments candid and interesting.

I am often asked how can a website owner get top placement in Google Maps. I have done some research on this topic and wanted to share the information with you. Many of the suggestions to improve your position you can implement yourself. I think that you will find my own personal business case study interesting and can offer insight into your own situation.

Read the full article in our November ’07 e-newsletter.