One of the First Steps in Content Optimization

One of the difficult things when starting something new is the first step, the beginning. Optimizing content is nothing different. The hardest part is to begin the process of optimizing content. Optimizing content is a task that is never finished. It is an ongoing process.

One of the first steps in optimizing content is to make sure the message a Web page delivers to the outside world reflects the content and preferably makes those messages unique and easily identified among the competitors. The Web page element that is primarily responsible for delivering the message to the outside world is the Title tag.

The following tables show the average usage of the Title tag from two large samples of Web sites. One sample is from Web sites categorized as general and the other is from Web sites with prominent positions in major search engines.

Title Length
Observed Element Observed Category % Found Average Min Max Median 80 Percentile Range
Title Length General 99.51 60.67 6.66 640.50 85.50 18.68 - 105.11
Title Length Prominent SE Positions 99.66 60.62 6.57 252.14 64.71 19.77 - 102.11
Number of Words in Title Tag
Observed Element Observed Category % Found Average Min Max Median 80 Percentile Range
Number of Words General 99.30 9.15 1.50 129.33 12.33 2.55 - 14.83
Number of Words Prominent SE Positions 99.66 8.51 1.00 32.71 8.71 2.62 - 14.34
Number of Meaningful Words in Title Tag
Observed Element Observed Category % Found Average Min Max Median 80 Percentile Range
Number of Words General 98.79 6.53 1.16 36.16 8.33 1.88 - 11.33
Number of Words Prominent SE Positions 98.97 6.43 1.00 28.00 5.71 2.00 - 11.08

These results show that the average length of the Title tag is approximately 60 characters and it contains on average 6-7 meaningful words.

By: Webmaster on : June 2009