A lot of friends ask me for advice when it comes to SEO. Nine times out of ten the first question is: How can I make my website/blog perform better on search engines – without spending any time or money?

Since I have to be the bad guy and inform them that, at least on our planet, that’s impossible, I give them the best place to start: their title tags. Writing great title tags is the most important thing you can do to explain what your website is about, both to Google and to potential visitors. It’s also one of the least time- and money-consuming SEO tactics you can use, while often making a very quick, noticeable difference in your search engine rankings.

The title tag is that blue link that appears in Google search results, and also the name of each webpage that appears at the very top bit of your web browser. Google’s search bots read these tags first to start judging what your page is about and what keywords are most relevant, so they basically tell Google that your site is what users want to see when they look for certain keywords.

As this tag is what appears in search results, a well-written one is likely to get you a higher percentage of click-throughs. Consider a potential visitor searching for new Ray Ban sunglasses. Which title do you think they will find more appealing:

"Sunglasses – Check out the new collection of Ray Ban sunglasses" - or -

"Welcome to my website!"

The tricky bit is appealing to the human beings you want to click your link while squeezing the most relevant keywords in there. With a little extra thought, it’s very doable. Here are six tips to help guide you in writing the most effective title tags for each page of your website.

1.  Make the first word/words of you title the keywords you want to capture users on – if you haven’t figured out what keywords you want to focus on, you can go here to see what keywords related to your content are getting the most searches on Google.

2.  Make the title reflect the information on the page. Misleading people will lead to an extremely high bounce rate and very few conversions.

3.  Don't use more then 63 characters. Google wont show the entire title if you do.

4.  If it makes sense to do so, use your title as the headline of your webpage – users expect to find the title on the page and it also reinforces the keywords you’re using.

5. Getting your brand/site name in there is a good idea for establishing trust and expanding your footprint, but you should generally put it at the end of the tag after a vertical line so the search focus is on your keywords.

6.  Your title will end up as a link in the search results, so make it compellingly clickable.

That’s about all there is to writing a great title tag. The most difficult part is determining which keywords to focus on for each page’s tags and content. Stay tuned for a future blog post on just that.