The document discusses the importance of the document title for search engine optimization. It is the title used on search engine results pages and when links to the page are shared. It should be optimized to include keywords and be concise, under 60 characters. The document title appears within the HTML <title> tags and is different from any visible page title on the site. Best practices include using keywords early in the title and separating them from the domain or brand name.

1. Copyright 2016 Alonzo L. Hosford. All Rights Reserved. www.lonhosford.com
This is a Visual Step by Step Workbook and voice transcript for accompanying video for this portion of the
course.

2. Lets look at the document title that the internet uses for your web page.
It is a important search engine optimization item that is often overlooked.

3. The document title is used in search engine results pages.
It influences how your web page is noticed and selected when people are searching on the internet.

4. The document title of your web page is also often used as the default label when its link is posted on
external web sites such as social media web sites.
These are also called backlinks and help improve your web page's search engine ranking results.

5. Be aware that the document title is not always used by default for external links.
For example the Reddit social media link submission form allows the poster to type the document title.

6. However, Reddit provides a button labeled "suggest title".
It fetches the document title from your web page to fill in the form for the person who is posting.

7. The document title also appears in the web browser.
For example it may be part of the web browser chrome such as a tab heading.

8. Or when you add a web page to a reading list or when you bookmark the page, the document title is often
pre filled for you.

9. Now lets look at how you create the document title.
It is tucked away in your web page HTML source.

10. Search engines use programs called crawlers to request your web page's HTML source.
Those programs scan the results and look for a code that identifies the document title.

11. The same is true when the link to your page is shared in social platforms.
The HTML source is requested from your web site with a program often called a scraper.
It works like a crawler except it is limited to the web page being posted.

12. Here is how the document title appears in the web page source
It is buried inside of HTML.

13. Now don't panic!
You may not need to know about the HTML coding to manage your document title.
For now just focus on the terminology as it is used in search engine optimization articles and tools.

14. The document title is encased in the HTML title tag.
It is code and has an open and close version.
The document title appears in between those tags.
All together it is called the HTML title element.

15. The title element appears as one of the first entries in the HTML source.
It is found inside another HTML element called head.
The head element also has open and close tag versions.

16. If you are writing HTML source code, you need to know all these details.
If you are using a tool to create your web page, you just need to know how the document title is entered
and edited and the HTML is handled for you.

17. You can look at your web page HTML source code and find the title element using most web browsers.
This is the Safari desktop browser.
A right mouse click over the page where there is no text or media reveals a shortcut menu with the choice
View Page Source

18. Here is the Firefox desktop web browser shortcut menu also with the choice View Page Source.

19. You can also explore your web browser's top menu for a choice to view the page source.
Often it is listed in a menu choice with other items useful to web developers.

20. The view source choice brings up the HTML code received from your web server.
Somewhere near the top you should see the title element.
You can do this on your own web page or any web page such as a competitor's web page.

21. As you can see this web page does not show the document title that appears in the search engine results
page.
This is because a web page may not need a visible page title.
But when it does, we call it the page heading to distinguish it from the document title.

22. The document title is for the internet to use in displaying links to your web page and making it finable.

23. The page heading is included for the people viewing the content.
However the internet may also make use of a page heading in the same way it does with the document
title.
The HTML elements used for page headings are best left for another lesson.

24. Some web page tools will have a single place for entering a page header and also use it for the document
title.
Others may give you a choice for editing both.

25. If you are writing HTML yourself always include a document title regardless if there is a need for a page
heading.

26. As a best practice, the document title and the page heading should share as many of the same keywords
as possible.

27. The document title is important when people scan the search engine results page.
It helps them make a decision to click through to your page.
It is also a factor that the search engine uses for ranking your web page against the keywords used in the
search.

28. To improve both how people see your document title in links on the internet and how search engines use it
for ranking, there are some best practices to follow when you write it.

29. First you might want to check if your web page has a document title.
If you do not have one, then internet programs like crawlers and scrapers try to find an alternative.

30. Usually they use something in your web page content such as a page heading.
Sometimes they come up short and just use the web page link.

31. One way to check is viewing the page source in your web browser as we did earlier.

32. You could also try to bookmark the page and see what is chosen for the bookmark label.

33. Also you can try to find the page in a search engine and see what is shown.

34. The document title should be thought of in two parts.
To the left at the beginning are keywords that you are targeting for the search engine.
These keywords should also be in the web page's content.

35. On the right of the title, you can include your branding.
This is usually your web site name or domain name.
Use a bar to separate this from the keyword part of the title.

36. Both search engines and visitors expect the document title to be related to the content in the web page.
If they are unrelated, search engines may substitute other content from your page for the document title
and visitors are quick to hit the back button.

37. You want the document title to motivate the viewer to select the link.
To do this make it easy to read.
It should consider the keywords that cause the link to appear in search engine results pages.

38. Search engines will not show an unlimited number of characters on their results page.
This is also true of social media posting.

39. Your title may be subjected to arbitrary truncation.
Here are two examples of truncated titles on this search results page.
You want to avoid this because part of a word or title may be misleading or even embarrassing.

40. The general rule has been to keep the document title within 60 characters.
Ultimately this really depends where the title is displayed and the font that is used.
So consider the 60 as a starting point for testing.

41. You also need to consider the matching search keywords.
Search engine result pages show those in bolded letters.
Notice that bold words increase the width of the title.

42. You will likely need words that are not keywords to make the title readable.
Keep in mind they increase the width of the title.
So choose them wisely such as using shorter words.

43. Words that contain wide letters like M or W increase the width.
You may not be able to avoid this for the keywords.
But other words you might look for alternatives that use narrower letters.

44. Same applies to all capital words.
Limit using all caps to keywords when expected such as SEO for Search Engine Optimization.

45. Search engines may not correctly include your page when the identical document title appears in more
than one page on the same web site.

46. You can test how your document title will appear in search engine results.
There are a number of sites that do this but be sure that they are updated.
You can find links for testing your document title in the description or on the web page for this video.

47. The testing tools usually include providing the targeted keywords for search.
This is important as those words may appear larger in the results page due to bolding.

48. Well thats a wrap.
Remember the document title represents your web page throughout the internet so make it a good one.

49. Copyright 2016 Alonzo L. Hosford. All Rights Reserved. www.lonhosford.com
This is a Visual Step by Step Workbook and voice transcript for accompanying video for this portion of the
course.