Page titles are essential to your web pages for a several reasons, which include SEO and usability. Page titles are one of the first items that search engine spiders crawl when indexing your site, so page titles need to be relevant to the content on that page. Additionally, that page title appears in search engine results so if you want click throughs, it needs to be relevant. Ann Smarty at Search Engine Journal details 7 criteria for effective page titles that are good to keep in mind when building or updating your website:
- page title should be short and concise (unless you want it’s broken at the end);
- each page title should be unique and the unique part should go first (if a visitor keeps several tabs from the same open, he should clearly see what each tab is about);
- it should be catchy (to communicate an effective message);
- page title should conform to the page purpose (e.g. calling to action or informational);
- page title should be based on your keywords (for Googlebot to understand what the page is about);
- page title should be focused (don’t try to include all your keywords in the title the home page);
- page title should be semantically correct (Google is likely to apply some kind of semantic analysis to titles to make sure they are not spammy).
I’m sure many of you hear the same thing I do: the wedding industry is recession proof. And indeed there is some truth to that because people will always want to get married. But as the news seems to get worse each and the stock market continues it tumble downward, being prudent would be a smart idea right now. As a wedding vendor you have to consider your budgets carefully and as many of you start advertising on the search engines PPC ad systems, competition will drive the cost up over time. The folks over at the Rimm-Kaufman Group Blog noted 6 strategies to consider right now that I think are worth paying attention to:
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Have clear economic targets. Be exact with how much traffic you want or will spend. Don’t be vague right now.
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Use strong bid management tools. If you outsource your PPC, stay in touch with your account manager. If you do it yourselves, keep a watchful eye on it. Don’t just let your PPC campaigns sit around.
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Shift ad dollars to stronger channels. Consider all your advertising options and use the methods with the greatest return, which may mean putting more into paid search and less into bridal events for instance.
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Seek capped agency or technology fees. Just make sure if you outsource your PPC campaigns, that fees don’t eat into your margins too heavily.
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Protect your bottom line first. Revenue targets set in 2007 may not work right now and you’ve got to be constantly adjust your targets right now. Protect your bottom line, what that mean a year ago is probably different right now.
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Stay calm. Don’t over react and don’t be afraid to be creative with your advertising and constantly be testing new ad units.
A new report was released by The Pew Internet & American Life Project indicating that people are using online search almost as much as email. The study of 2251 adults (18+) reports that 49% are searching daily compared to 60% using email daily.
While email is still one of the most cost effective means of marketing to potential clients, and will remain so for the forseeable future, reports like this remind us that it can’t be our only marketing tactic. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts should be a component of your marketing plan now, as should the use of social media (Facebook, Myspace, Digg, etc). This report is a friendly reminder that finding new clients takes a variety of activities. At WeddingWire, we make sure each individual vendors’ storefront is search engine friendly to maximize your exposure to those searching via Google, Yahoo!, MSN and others to give your listing maximum exposure.
If you’re looking for tips on updating your site to make it more search engine friendly I’ll soon be posting regularly on items to think about. In the meantime to get you started, here’s a few great resources on the web. Some of the websites and blogs you can find in my Google Reader include:
There’s lots of sites out there to find information on SEO tactics and using the web to your advantage as well. As most brides will start their research on the web somewhere
