1/11/2010
Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic
Think Carefully about Your Title Tags
Twitter Forces Bloggers to Think Carefully about Post Titles and Title Tags
Title tags are extremely important for SEO, as they are highly valued by Google and most all the other search engines. Title tags should include primary keywords and ideally be limited to about 64 characters.
Twitter has made blog post title tags more important than ever. When a blog post is tweeted and retweeted multiple times, it can generate a lot of well qualified traffic to that post. There are Twitter tools available that reduce tweeting and retweeting to an easy, one or two click operation. I most often use the Hootlet feature of HootSuite or the TweetMeme button that appears at the top and/or bottom of many blog posts.
When you use Hootlet or TweetMeme, the blog post’s title tag becomes the default text in your tweet. This is important, because not everyone will take the time to edit that default text to make his or her tweet more interesting or informative.
If your title tag is vague, dull, too short, too long, or otherwise uninspiring, you’ll get fewer retweets and less traffic coming to the post.
The Need for Post Titles and Title Tags
In WordPress, your post title defaults to the title tag. Sometimes – if you’re trying to promote your post on Twitter, for instance – you’ll want to customize your title tag. Here’s a popular post of mine, SEO Opens the Door, But You’ll Need More to Close the Deal. I quickly created a custom title tag for this post, “SEO and Customer Service Needed for Conversions”. Once the custom title tag is created, my post title becomes the h1 tag.
Why would I do his?
- I thought the post title conveyed a bit of a story and contained a little mystery, which would inspire people to read on once they arrived at the post.
- I thought the post title was a bit too long and vague to serve as good default text for Twitter.
- I wanted to target the keywords “SEO” and “customer service”, reasoning that people tracking these words on Twitter would find the post valuable. And incidentally, I felt the custom title tag would be more suitable for Google and traditional SEO.
Start with Your Title Tag and Work Backwards to Your Post Title
If you’re not sure whether you need a custom title tag, my advice: start there. If your title tag – which should be “all business” – looks clunky as a post title, compose a post title that will get readers interested once they arrive at the post. If you’re looking for inspiration for post titles, read 33 Foolproof Headline Strategies.
The Problem of Branding in Title Tags
Many SEO specialists, myself included, recommend branding in your title tags. I confess, I’m horribly inconsistent when it comes to doing this on my own blog. For instance, I should have made the title tag for the customer service post -
SEO and Customer Service Needed for Conversions | Word Sell, Inc.
However, branding can get to be an issue if you’ve got Twitter on your mind. For one thing, if your brand has a very long name, your default Twitter text may be too long to allow for unedited tweeting and retweeting. Again, the more work the Twitterer has to do, the less likely he or she will bother. In addition, inserting a branding message in a tweet can make it come off as too “salesy”, and clutter the message with text that doesn’t influence a person to click on the link.
Am I saying you should eliminate branding from your title tags? No. To be frank, I’m not really sure what the correct answer is, other than to say it varies from case to case. You might try experimenting with branded and non-branded title tags and track Twitter referrals. I doubt if there’s a one-size-fits-all formula – what do you think?
19 Responses to Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic
Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic http://goo.gl/fb/G5YH
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Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic: Think Carefully about Your Title Tags Twitter Force.. http://bit.ly/8fM91B
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Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic http://tinyurl.com/ycmgdnf >> Awesome Post By @bradshorr
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Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic | Word Sell, Inc.: Carefully written title tags make it easy fo.. http://bit.ly/6KPDik
Plz Rt
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Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic http://bit.ly/61hnuK
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Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic http://bit.ly/61hnuK (via @randylewiskemp )
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Good advice and a record number of T’s in a title… @bradshorr Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic http://tinyurl.com/ycmgdnf
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Brad. You must have been reading my Brain. The Title and Tags topics are areas I’ve been attempting to learn more about. I will be sure to share this with my several of my writing groups. Especially, our Illinois Society of Chilren Book Authors and Illustrators. Our listserv has been discussing Blogging. Thanks! Sheila
Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic http://bit.ly/5wdJCs via @bradshorr Spot on, as always
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This is very useful, Brad. Thank you. I’m walking away with three powerful distinctions:
1) understanding the difference between Post Titles and Title Tags;
2) the importance of integrating Twitter & blog posts;
3) taking every opportunity to make posts easy to promote.
That’s excellent.
Best, Robin
Hi Robin, Glad you were able to glean 3 useful ideas from the post. A lot of bloggers gloss over the post title – title tag distinction, but that can be costly, especially for those foundational posts.
JUST COMMENTED: @bradshorr post | Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic > 3 powerful takeaways for me | http://bit.ly/8Ih80h
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Well said Brad! RT @goodcopybadcopy: RT @bradshorr Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic http://tinyurl.com/ycmgdnf
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A new tongue twister ! RT @RobynMcMaster: RT @tweetmeme Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic http://tinyurl.com/ycmgdnf
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@cielyn: @bradshorr did create tongue twister w/ Tight Title Tags Attract Twitter Traffic http://tinyurl.com/ycmgdnf
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