What To Do When Google Messes Up The Title Of Your Site
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BWMagic’s Internet Marketing News
What To Do When Google Messes Up The Title Of Your Site
In the past, I have always found it helpful to read about
other people’s problems with Google and how they solved them.
Maybe this won’t happen to you but in case it does, reading
about my experiences and mistakes might help you avoid them.
Yesterday morning, while nervously waiting for Google Caffeine
to drip into place, I got a rude awakening of just how abrupt some
of Google’s constant changes can bring to an online marketer.
Imagine this scenario: You have a site in Google’s index for over
four years which is ranked on the first page for some very competitive
keywords. Suddenly, one morning you check your rankings and they
have gone up a few notches but…
Google has changed the “Title” of your site in their index.
Google is no longer pulling the title from your “Title Tag” – the
name and words you want in the title and which has been in the Google
index for over 4 years. Instead Google has spidered your site’s main
page and pulled a generic title from your content.
Ouch!
Why does this matter? What’s the big deal you’re asking?
It’s a big deal mainly because I start my marketing funnel right
in the Google Serps, this is my first contact with potential
clients. You must pull in the right visitors to your site, visitors
who are of the right mind-set to buy a product or service.
Over the years, I have learned getting top rankings in Google for
lucrative keywords is only the first step in your marketing process.
Next, you have to have the right title and description in Google in
order to bring or attract the right visitors to your site.
I will explain further…
The site in question is a comparison shopping type site, where for
years the title said something like: Comparison of Product A Features/Prices
Then Google changes the Title to: What is Product A?
My site goes from being a comparison shopping site to an educational
site in the minds of those reading Google Serps. Bad news… very
bad news.
With this new title my site is not only attracting the wrong kind of
visitor, but it goes from competing with small like-minded comparison sites
to competing with big sites like Wikipedia.
That’s probably a bit of an exaggeration but not really. It totally
messes up my marketing funnels for that site. Actually it cuts the
marketing down to just about nil since your conversion rates will
go down if you’re not attracting buyers.
Now, while it is very easy to blame Google for this change, I have
long learned - 9 times out of 10 - it is probably the webmaster or
marketer’s own doings which has caused the problem.
I have also learned when anything goes wrong, you have to first do,
a very detailed analysis of any changes you have made to any of your pages.
And I did make some changes to my index page for this site in question…
I added a link to an education site which is probably a big no-no in
Google’s mind. If you have a shopping comparison site… you should
not be pointing to an .edu site. This probably confused the robot in
some matter or triggered the nature of my site in the eyes of Google.
While checking this matter out further, I discovered that Google doesn’t have
to use your “Title Tag” at all. It can list your site anyway it sees
fit. Or rather it doesn’t have to accept your title if it believes
the page doesn’t relate to your title. It can comb the page and
decide a new Title for it… usually words appearing somewhere on
your page. Big Brother knows best and you have to play by his rules.
Here’s an interesting page from Google on this:
Google on Titles
I knew from the beginning that my title for that page was over the 65-70
characters allowed in Google, but Google would always list it and put
in the “…” at the end. Yahoo allows up to 120 characters and
that’s the reason I had the longer title in the first place.
Now, in the past with other web sites, changing the title of your
page in Google’s Index is no big deal. Usually after a few days, once
Google has spidered your page again, the new title appears in that
all important index. I am chalking up the lost sales as a bad
mistake on my part.
I have made changes to the site in question and I wait anxiously
for Google to change the title back to the comparison shopping
angle which is truly what this site is all about. It does have
an educational element to it but that’s because I want any customers
to be fully informed about the products in question.
For me as an online marketer that first impression in Google’s Index
is crucial to my whole marketing process. And if you’re into selling
anything online or if you just want to attract the right targeted
visitors to your site – having the proper title and description are
essential to the success of your site.
You MUST give a lot of time and consideration to your title tag
and description. It is extremely important for attracting the right
type of visitor to your site. Get this wrong and even a #1 spot
in Google can be useless!
Here’s a handy little tool and site which will help you create your
titles and descriptions for search engines, mainly Google.
Title Optimizer
Use this tool to create your titles…
Then learn from my mistake and make sure your content and links
on your page is truly relevant to your title. Repeat your title
on the page in the “H1″ headline is a good starting point, just keep
all content on topic so that Google’s robots and Algorithm doesn’t get
confused and mislabel your site.
Helping You Succeed Online Since 2002!
Kind Regards,
Titus
http://www.bizwaremagic.com
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