Hi there, and welcome back to the podcast. Today, I want to walk you through some small business SEO, just explanations, some things that maybe you've heard me use the term, but you're not quite sure what it is, what it means, why it's important. So I wanna kinda help you learn a little bit more about how to use SEO to help your small business be found online. So today, I wanna talk about title tags. So have you ever heard me say, "You need to optimize your title tag," and thought, "Rachel, I don't even really know what a title tag is. I really don't wanna tell you that I don't know. Like, I don't wanna raise my hand and admit that I don't know what it is"? If so, good. We're gonna talk about it today because you need to understand what these terms are, what these things mean, in order for you to be able to use them to make things work better for you. So a title tag is an SEO element. It is specific to traditional or Google SEO. It's something that we've had available to us for many, many years. You've likely seen somewhere where you could put title on a page on your website. You may not have known whether you were supposed to do that, what you were supposed to do, how to write it. It's possible you've tried to create one, but you weren't really sure if you've done it the right way. So title tags are an element that are on every website page or blog post. They help people understand what that page is about when they are looking in traditional search results, so meaning they're searching on Google or another traditional search engine. They don't really have as much to do with AI-based search, but they are definitely focused on our traditional search engines. A title tag is the first thing that your potential website visitor sees that helps them determine whether or not they think that your page could be helpful for them. So it is going to be directly below your website name and your URL And it will have an assortment of words. Maybe it'll be a sentence structure, maybe it'll just be a couple of keywords. It's whatever you have used. Now, if you have not updated and added a title tag, then Google is going to generally give you what they think that page is about. If you're on WordPress, the name of your page or the name of your blog post will be the title tag by default. That's just the way that WordPress works. So what we want to do as small business owners who want to really do SEO and be able to be found online is to create a unique title tag. So what you're going to want to do, you have a maximum of 60 characters to work with, and that does include spaces. So we don't have a whole lot of room. We have 60 characters, including spaces, and we want to use our keyword in our title tag because Google looks at each of those traditional SEO elements, your title tag, your meta description, your URL, your header tags, your copy, your image file names, et cetera. Each of those should have the same keyword in it on each page to help Google understand what that page is about. So Google's looking to find a keyword in your title tag. Your ideal customer is looking to figure out, "Can you help me? Is your site going to contain the information that I need?" So in the example in the blog post, I've got my homepage, and the keyword on my homepage is small business SEO. It's also one of the main keywords on this podcast. Because I wanna help people just like you, small business owners, learn about SEO. So the title tag says Small Business SEO pipe, that's the vertical line, learn SEO, AEO, which is answer engine optimization, and GEO, generative engine optimization, to get found. So what we find with title tags is that if we can include a call to action or an action verb, we can actually increase the click-through rate. So in this e- example, I used that at the end rather than at the beginning. But when I was at the agency, we very often used that click th- that, um, action verb, that action term at the beginning and wrote it more in a sentence format to try to entice that click. So it would be shop, find out, discover, learn. So I could have done learn small business SEO, um, AEO and GEO to get found online. Like, I could have done that as well. And so you wanna think about your ideal customer, what questions do they have, what information do they need, what keyword are you trying to rank for on this page, and write a title tag that is a maximum of 60 characters, including spaces, that uses your keyword. You don't necessarily have to include your business name anymore. We used to, but now Google has gotten to the point, they tend to append it and give us the business name right on there. So you don't have to worry about that as much today as we did maybe a decade ago. So for the most part, one sentence, 60 characters, include a click... include a call to action term or call to action verb. If you're able to, you can write them as a sentence, you can write them keyword, pipe, keyword, you can write the combination. I put some different examples in the blog post, so if you're curious, you wanna see how you can write them and how long different ones are, um, you can see that in the blog post today that goes along with this podcast episode. I'll put that in the description. It also was in your email. If you're on my email list, you got that link to the blog post because that's got some good examples. It also shows you what my title tag looks like. It also shows you what it looks like generally in the back end of your system when you are updating a title tag. So if you've ever wondered what is a title tag, why does it matter to my SEO, am I writing it for Google, am I writing it for my ideal customer, how long should it be, what do I need to do? There you go. There's just a little bit of information. There really- A fairly simple part of your small business SEO plan, but they'll get you started. Now, from here, once you do the title tag, the next thing you'll wanna think about is a meta description. You will want to use the same keyword in both of those. Your meta description is the next thing that your ideal customer will see that will help them decide whether or not they're going to click through to come to your website. I do have a blog post on that as well, and I can put that into the notes for you in case you need a little bit of help with how do you do a meta description, 'cause the two go hand in hand. You wanna use the same keyword in both. Both of them are going to show signals to Google that this is what this page is about, but they're designed to help your ideal customer know if you are the person that they're looking for who can help them with their issues. All right, that's it for introductory. If you're just starting to learn SEO, you're curious about all of this, if you have not yet taken the free class, be sure and look for that. I will be teaching it, um, again in mid-July. We'll be doing the group program, five days coaching. You'll be able to come in and learn and start to see and kinda understand how all of this works. Then you can join me in Simple SEO Content. I will teach you exactly how to do all of this. We'll turn your website into the right type of website to grow your business. So we'll get the content on there that you need for your customers. We'll get it optimized in a way that Google and AI understand it, and then I'm also gonna be working with you to make sure that you're set up for conversions. So not only are we tracking leads, but making sure you've got an opt-in and your opt-in is performing, and, like, let's really turn this website into a lead and revenue generator for your business. So that's really what we're gonna be focusing on in that program moving forward, is the full cycle, the full... You know, not just choosing a few keywords, but making sure that we have everything on that website so that your business can start making more money, because just getting people to your site is only step one. We need to make sure that they've found what they're looking for and that they're likely to convert. So I'm gonna start teaching you all of that in our program. All right, that's it for today. I'll see you back here next week. If you have any questions, DM me on Instagram or join me in Simple SEO Content and let's talk through it and I will help you. If you would like to work one-on-one, we can do that as well. Uh, reach out. There's a consulting page on the website that'll kinda walk you through the consulting program. I would like- love to help you with your SEO or your marketing in general. I've got 25 years in digital marketing. I can help you with just about anything you need help with from a marketing perspective. All right, I will see you back here next week. Bye for now.