seeking guidelines for title and description

hello -

i'm redoing my site and i'm getting lots of different opinions on this, so i thought i'd pose my question to you friendly folks:

Q: How do I create the most effective title? How long, how many keywords, etc?

Q: Same question, for description...

thanks!

For the index pages of my site I use a general title tag with 3 or for keywords - but I make it read like a summary intro

example: My Site Title - keyword, keyword, keyword and more

For the interior pages I am generally going after very niche terms so they are more like:

Keyword at My Site Title

For descriptions I generally get a few keywords in there, but I do make it read as a sales pitch and not a laudry list of terms. There are a few SE's that do use the description tag so I make sure it reads well.

Most important though is to sell your site with your title tag. Give them a reason to click. Many people that stuff their titles with just keywords make their SE listings look terrible

Example:

1. Widgets, widget accessories, widgest books

2. 4widgets.com widget maker of widgets

3. Buy Widgets and Widget Accessories at Low Prices

4. My widget site, widget, widget, widget

Which one do you think will get the most action?? Obviously the 3rd one since it is a call to action for the surfer. I learned this by trial and error in the early days of PPC traffic where I would see people spending big bucks for top listings, getting tons of traffic that didnt convert, but the people that had listings that said BUY or PURCHASE would get considerably less traffic but it converted like crazy.

that is totally sensible and helpful, thanks

Dhecker

The above is correct - but..... go pay money for www.wordtracker.com for a years sub

The reason is quite simple you, that is yourself, never know what people will look for, what keyword phrase they will use, and how much competition there is for that phrase, and therefore the likelihood of getting meaningful enquiries.

For example

'Houses for sale' has umpteen people using it and umpteen sites also - however 'properties to buy' has lesser people using it but more significantly only one or two sites using it - its KEI is high - result you get ALL the traffic

I can tell you that it is a very good way of inceasingf your position - the pages go to the top next troll by the bot!

I did the trial - very interesting. So, do I use the results for the keyword field?

You use the results in the Title, Description, Keywords, and Text

In order of importance for Google

Title, Text - including links to internal and external eg link down the page, Description.

Have I missed anything ?

Use "Mini-Sites" in directories eg Phrase 'holiday homes'

Title "Holiday homes on the moon"
Text "Holiday homes on earth are soon going to be 'holiday homes' (quotes here are link to a heading further down emphasising HHon the Moon) on the moon......" and further on another link to /holiday_homes/holiday_homes.htm which has loads of text and int links and ext links all around holiday homes.

etc

jeez foxy - you sure like those rainbow gradient backgrounds in your sites!

Been out looking hey?

Yeah the reason is that once you've found the customer - what are you showing them?

Branding is most important (rather than webname) but what else?

Are you showing them pieces of paper or... are you showing them a TV screen?

Not difficult to work out!

As they happen to be looking at something similar to a TV and, as your screen eg MacOSX etc (normally) loads up with some background with depth I decided to try and get depth into all the sites and to be colourful.

I've tried a number of techniques to try and float text over the top of the background using misting etc but the best is to use a page with a table (block) over with a "flat" colour on it .

There are other benefits as well in that it restricts the amount of info you put down on a page thus not confusing the client and, also it limits the amount of scrolling the client has to do - clients hate scrolling!

Anyway - we have fun

Once you load the thin strip of about 8kb on the home page it stays for all time

My approach is to form title tags as direct as possible, i.e. if you optimise for keyword1 than this is your title, and this only. For keyword2 there will another URL, and so on ...

I do recognise, though, what you say about the "call to action" bit, tonyfelice. Very interesting. Would you think a more subtle "Download" isnt going to work as well as a straight and honest "Buy"?