Basics of Search Engine Optimization for Education - Tip #5 - Page Title

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Tip #5 - Utilize the Page Title - At the top of the browser pane of most web pages you can find the title of that web page. For the page you are reading right now, for example, Adaptive Campus should be listed, as well as something related to the title of this blog entry (or if you are on the main blog page, it would just say blogs), followed by the type of browser (I prefer Mozilla Firefox, but statistically speaking yours probably says Microsoft Internet Explorer). Many higher education institutions and other education-related organizations use this area to place the name of the institution or organization, possibly the program, but not much else. Yet this is a critical area to optimize for search engines using the terms you have identified in your search engine optimization analysis. It is also one of the easiest things to update.

I normally stay away from getting into the technical part of the optimization, such as writing HTML code, because most of you can refer to your local IT support that should be able to do what I am suggesting, but in this case, it is so simple, I will attempt to briefly explain. In an HTML coded web page, the two main parts of the code are the head and body. In the head area, you typically see two tags using the term title (although I can't type the actual tags on this HTML page, sorry!). In between those two tags are the words that you see at the top of the browser window. So, all you have to do is change those words. If you are using a content manager (that allows you to create the HTML pages using an online form) it should be even easier, because there should be a box entitled 'Title', which will control the words used in the title of the web page. If this paragraph is confusing for you, don't worry, just tell your web development person that you want to update the title of the web pages in question, and they should be able to do that in a matter of seconds. The hard part is determining what words to use.

Now that you can locate the title, I would recommend to use this area to provide a short description of that page using key phrases you want to optimize for. Of course, it has to make sense, but this can really help the placement of your web page fo that key phrase. It is believed to be one of the strongest factors in search engine placement. As an example, lets say we are optimizing for "Online Nursing Degree", and your current home web page title says "University of Anytown - Online BSN Program." Based on your search engine optimization analysis, you may update this to:

"Online Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree - University of Anytown - Where Quality Online Nursing Education Comes First"

This delivers a much more descriptive title and happens to say the terms 'online' & 'nursing' twice each, and many other key phrases you might have had in mind, such as 'Degree,' 'Bachelor of Science,' 'quality,' and 'education.' You may have also determined through your search engine optimization analysis that students don't use the term 'program' and so it may be better to leave that out of the title in favor of terminology they do use. I am not saying that is the case, but that is the sort of information that can come out of a more in-depth analysis of your market. This also illustrates the importance of integrating the findings from your search engine optmization analysis with other components of your marketing strategy, such as the tag line for the program. If you have done the analysis and found that these are the terms that your student market is responding to, then it makes sense to include these terms in all of your marketing copy. This is also helps to provide an integrated and consistent message across all of your marketing channels, a key element in any successful marketing campaign.