Have you ever gone to a website and seen the words "Home Page" or "Home" in the page title? Probably quite a bit.

Many factors contribute to the ranking of your site in search engines (Google, MSN, Yahoo), but the page title is one of the most important things to consider when doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO). That is why you should never use vague and non-descript words like "Home Page". Page titles are best when kept to 10-12 words. The goal is to use as many keywords as possible while still maintaining a complete sentence. Sometimes this is difficult, but it can be done.

When constructing a page title, we always start with a list of words that we think people would use to search. From here, you can actually find out how often these words have been searched in Google with their keyword tool. Not only is this interesting, it will help you know which words to focus on.

As an example, this is the list we made for the website www.do-itmolds.com. Do-it Molds is a company that manufacturers lead molds that allow fishing hobbyists to make their own tackle.

• Do-it Molds
• jig molds
• sinker molds
• lure molds
• fishing tackle
• lead molds
• pouring lead molds

After this, you just have to keep playing with word combinations until you come up with a sentence that contains most of your keywords. The name "Do-it Molds" has good name recognition in their industry so we decided to start the page title with this. Some people say you should end the page title with the company name - we think every situation is unique and you just have to make a judgement call. Here is what we ended up with:

Do-it Molds: Jig, sinker, & lure molds for pouring your own lead fishing tackle.

As of today, Do-it Molds ranks very high for most of these keywords, getting the top one or two positions in the Google organic listing. The page title definitely plays a role in this.

Since it is -20 out we figured we would throw near boiling water into the air and see what happened.  This is for all of our friends and clients in much warmer parts.

GreatAmerica is a national lessor located in Cedar Rapids Iowa that works in several niche markets.  GreatAmerica has over 300 employees and several office locations throughout the US.  An internal team was formed and started their search with over 25 potential firms.  We were fortunate enough to make the final cut. 

Our task was to give this company a site that was a much better reflection of the culture and a better identity on the web.  This was done by using a clean design, video, better photos and by allowing the staff to make edits on their own. One of the main purposes of the site beyond client retention and sales was to expose the culture to potential employees.  The videos in the career section did a great job of this. These videos were shot using River Run Productions, our in-house production company.