SEO Tips For Jewelers Who Aren’t Tech Experts: On-Page Titles & Headers (Part 2)
September 26, 2018 (0 comments)
This is the second article in a series I'm writing, geared to help jewelers understand the basics of getting found on Google. Read part 1 (the basics)
here.
In this article, I'm going to discuss some "on-page" SEO strategies - specifically titles and headers - that you can do to boost your SEO rankings.
What is "on-page"?
On-Page SEO refers to changes you can make to your blog posts and websites. A lot of these are very simple to implement and produce significant change in how Google views your site. As such, on-page SEO is one of the most cost-effective (free) and significant ways you can get found online.
I write all the time how important it is to produce content on a regular basis on your website. This is why. Google reviews your website and scans the headlines, paragraphs, product descriptions, and more - then uses this information and compares it against other sites online. It then makes a split second judgement call on the order it should show websites to searchers.
We should use the following best-practices to help Google read our sites better.
Title/Header
Your page or post's title is one of the most important factors into your SEO ranking. The way you write and name your article is not just about how the page visually looks to a reader - it helps Google read your site easier, too.
Switching our Page's name from 'JewelryEcomm" to "Jewelry Marketing Tips, Tutorials" boosted our rank significantly.
The title is what appears first when a visitor searches on Google, like this:
and also appears at the top of the menu bar. Like this:
So not only does the page's title help Google learn about your pages, but also tells readers what to expect (and will determine if they click your link).
Titles vs Headers: A Title is technically different than a Header - a page can only have one title and is what shows in search results, whereas you can type multiple headers throughout the page and thats what appears on the actual page itself.
Formatting Headers
When you post news articles and blogs on your website, you'll have some kind of publishing layout. Take a look at how my screen looks, publishing the last article in the series in Wordpress.
Wordpress makes it easy and has a specific spot to write the blog post's article name. Wordpress automatically designates this as the Title and formats it correctly. This is known as a "title tag", and helps Google understand what your article is all about. It's very important how you type your title -
Google weighs the FRONT of your title/headers with great importance. For example, my goal with this article is for people to find us when they search Google for "SEO Tips For Jewelers", so I've put that as the first words of the title.
It's also very important to wrap your title in a <h1> tag. Many website platforms, like Wordpress, will automatically do this for you. But if you're using a website platform that doesn't do this, you can do it yourself by applying basic coding/styling, like this:
<h1>
Your Blog Article Title Here</h1>
(If you're not familiar with code, you're essentially making little brackets. H1 means "Header Size 1", your biggest and main header size. The <h1> tag tells the page it's the beginning of the line, and the </h1> tells the page it's the end of the styling).
Title tags are the most important factor for Google ranking, (the actual content is most important), and you should only ever use one <h1> tag on your page.
Optimal format
Your title should ALWAYS contain your the key words you'd like to be found for. The following is a recommended best-practices format for your page title.
Recommended: Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
Example: Sapphire and Diamond Ring - Shop Jewelry Online | Bob's Jewelry Brand
Optimal title length
Google typically displays the first
50–60 characters of a title tag. Keeping your title under 60 characters is recommended so visitors can read the full header.
I hope this was helpful! I'll be posting the next article to this series in a few days, and will teach you more about on-page SEO tactics.
