Good page titles

I find myself often talking about the importance of good page titles, so I thought I’d get all of the info into one place.

The page title is very important for a number of reasons:

• It was what people see in their toolbar when your site is open.
• It is the default text when someone bookmarks a page on your site.
• It is a very important factor into how well you rank in Google and other search engines.

Keep in mind those three things when creating your titles.  This is not the place to be saying things like “welcome” — use the actual page for that.

My standard suggestion for a church site is to use “church name – city, state – page info”.  Here are some examples:

• First United Methodist Church – Atlanta, GA – Youth Ministry
• Bostwick Lake Baptist Church – Saginaw, MI – Children’s Events
• Mt. Paran Church of God – Marietta, GA – Sermon Archive

You get the idea.  Also, it’s usually best to spell out your church name rather than abbreviate it, as in “First United Methodist Church” rather than “First UMC”.  You want to rank well for “methodist” and “church”, don’t you?