WHAT IS A META TITLE TAG?
A meta title tag is usually the first item that appears in the search engine results page describing your site. It is vital. People assess your site based on your title tag and maybe on your description tag. If the meta title tag does not have what they are looking for, they go elsewhere.
That does not mean title tags should be long, flowery sales pitches. Maximum length is about 20 words. They must be chosen well Some guidelines even say that the title tag should be no longer than 70 characters, but that is based on what shows in the top bar of a browser. Search engines see more.
How to Write Title Tags for Your Web Pages
The single most important sentence for your law practice website is the title tag of your main page. If written properly, then your site is much closer to being well placed in search engine results for your important keywords. It should not exceed 55 characters
The title tag is very important because it "tells" the search engine what a page is about, and in the case of your main page, what your law office website is all about.
A title tag is usually seen as the first line in the search results and simply must summarize your site so people can instantly decide if they want to see your whole site.
Bad title tags pretty much destroy your chances of getting qualified prospects to visit your legal web site.
You've got to feature the gist of your law practice in a title tag.
Title tags feature the most important words and phrases best describing what your law practice is about.
USE DIFFERENT TITLE TAGS ON EACH
PAGE OF YOUR WEBSITE.
Use each of your page's titles to tell people what that page is about in 55 characters.
WHAT ARE RICH SNIPPETS?
Rich Snippets is the term used to describe structured data markup that site operators can add to their existing HTML, which in turn allow search engines to better understand what information is contained on each web page. Wikipedia
Rich Snippets combine the other meta tag elements and are simply essential for any web site.
KEYWORDS? WHERE TO START?
Google now says it does not use meta keywords to rank a web site. That does not mean keywords are dead.
Think of keywords as key content keywords. Notice how often we use "law practice" on this page. The repetition tells search engines that "law practice" is important to this page.
In a law practice site, you may use "criminal law" or "car crash injury" to achieve the same thing.
MAKE SURE YOUR CHOSEN KEYWORDS APPEAR IN THE CONTENT OF YOUR PAGE AND IN THE KEYWORD META TAG SECTION
Your most important keywords should also appear near the beginning of the title tag.
For example, for this CanLaw section on low-cost web design for lawyers, the title tag might look like this:
"Professional Web Site Design For Your Law Office $350"
A tag for criminal law lawyers might read:
"Barrie Criminal lawyer all criminal charges legal aid "
Put your most important keywords at the front of the title tag. Establish your company name elsewhere such as with your logo and other elements of the web page.
PUT YOUR TOWN IN YOUR TITLE TAG
This is especially important for lawyers. People look for lawyers by location and practice areas.
PUT YOUR PRACTICE AREAS
IN THE TITLE TAG
This is especially important for lawyers. People look for lawyers by location and practice areas.
META DESCRIPTION TAGS
Meta description tags should not exceed 155 characters.
They provide a short description of your law office services and are extremely important in gaining user click-through to your site.
These short paragraphs advertise content to people and show them whether or not the given page contains the information they're looking for.
Meta description tags are important to search engine rankings.
META CONTENT TAGS
A Content Tag is usually visible to people searching for a site. Either this or the description tag will be reflected in the search engine results.
KEYWORD META TAG
A Keyword Meta Tag is typically invisible to a viewer.
The keyword meta tag is no longer used as a major element for search engines anymore. However, some engines do use them, so better to include them, then not.
OTHER META TAGS
There are many other meta tags in use in website design. Most are related to information which is cut and dry. They list things like author, copyright, technical information for search robots.
CanLaw includes these items in all sites as matter of course.
How to handle keywords, meta tags, titles without getting Google and the other search engines angry.