storEDGE Quick Tips: Title Tags and Alt Tags - Why Do They Matter?

STOREDGE
QUICK TIPS
TITLE TAGS AND ALT TAGS:
WHY DO THEY MATTER?

As you try to earn your website the best rankings in search results,
there are probably HTML phrases you have heard but don’t fully
understand. Two such terms are title tags and alt tags.
Understanding these terms can help you accomplish two things:
1. Improve the user’s experience when they visit your website.
2. Improve your site’s visibility on search engine results pages.
All it takes is a bit of time answering a few questions to optimize your
title and alt tags for users and search engines alike. Let’s explore how.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HTML AND SEO

A title tag is a short, approximately 70-character description of a
webpage.
If you look at the top of this page, just above the URL, you’ll see a tab
title. This short description accurately summarizes the content of this
page.
This tag is inserted into a website’s HTML, located in the <head>
section of the webpage.
TITLE TAGS: WHAT ARE THEY?

TITLE TAGS: WHAT’S THEIR PURPOSE?
Title tags tell users and search engines:
“Clear and concise, this is what my page is about.”
Apart from the site’s content, title tags are the second most important
on-page SEO element. The more relevant they are to a user’s search,
the more likely your site will rank highly for the user’s search.

You now know that title tags appear at the top of the page you’re
viewing. Now let’s see their other main location using our storEDGE
blog page as an example. Say you were to perform a Google search
for “self storage blog.” You would land on a results page with plenty of
self storage-related blogs. Among those results you would find a link
to our blog page and it would look like this:
TITLE TAGS: WHERE ARE THEY PLACED?
Self Storage Blog Articles | storEDGE
www.storedge.com/blog/
From web marketing and facility operations to technology
tips and life in the self storage industry, our blog articles
cover a wide range of topics.

TITLE TAGS: WHERE ARE THEY PLACED?
The text you see in the tab of a page is exactly the same as the text
you’ll see in search results because they’re both being pulled from the
page’s title tag in the HTML code.
Here’s a breakdown of each section in search results:
Self Storage Blog Articles | storEDGE = title tag
www.storedge.com/blog/ = link
From web marketing and facility operations to technology
tips and life in the self storage industry, our blog articles
cover a wide range of topics. = meta tag

A WORD ON META TAGS
In the previous example, you may have noticed a small set of text
directly below the URL. This is called the meta tag, or description, of the
webpage. Here’s everything you need to know about meta tags:
1. They do not directly affect your page’s SEO rankings.
2. They should be approximately 155 characters long.
3. Though they don’t directly affect your SEO, they can prompt a
user to visit your site with keywords and a compelling description
(therefore affecting your site’s click-through rate).
4. Just like title tags, meta tags should be descriptive, concise, and
reader friendly.

So there you have it. By writing a great title tag as well as a great
meta tag, your page can receive a boost in rankings (through the title)
and a boost in conversions (through the description).
Just to make sure we’re on the same page, let’s use another example
to illustrate proper practices for title and meta tags...
POINTS TO CONSIDER ABOUT TITLE & META TAGS

TITLE TAGS IN ACTION
Let’s say you were searching the web for resources on how to tie your
shoes. You see something like this upon typing “how to tie shoes”:
Amy’s Website for Shoes and Shoelaces | Example.com
www.example.com/find-shoes-near-you/
Example.com is the best place to find all things shoes and shoelaces.
How to Tie Your Shoes | Example.com
www.example.com/how-to-tie-your-shoes/
Our simple article will have you tying your shoes in no time!
Tie Shoes Tie Shoes Shoe Tying Fast | Example.com
www.example.com/womens-shoes-mens-shoes-kids-shoes/
We have the best how to tie your shoes guide. CLICK HERE!

If you were actually looking for a resource for tying your shoes, you
would most likely gravitate to the second result here even though it
isn’t the highest in ranking. Why?
TITLE TAGS IN ACTION
Amy’s Website for Shoes and Shoelaces | Example.com
www.example.com/find-shoes-near-you/
Example.com is the best place to find all things shoes and shoelaces.
How to Tie Your Shoes | Example.com
www.example.com/how-to-tie-your-shoes/
Our simple article will have you tying your shoes in no time!
Tie Shoes Tie Shoes Shoe Tying Fast | Example.com
www.example.com/womens-shoes-mens-shoes-kids-shoes/
We have the best how to tie your shoes guide. CLICK HERE!
Not as relevant to your
search as it could be.
Matches your search
almost perfectly.
Looks like spam. You
don’t know what’s here.

TITLE TAGS DOS AND DON’TS
DO: Make your title tags descriptive and concise. If you could only say one thing about the
page, what would it be?
DO: Think of the user when writing the title tag. Write something you would want to read if
you were the one searching.
DO: Include location information in your title tag if the page is directed toward users in a
certain city. (Example: Self Storage in NYC)
DO: Consider the placement of keywords in your title tag. The closer the keyword is to the
beginning, the more likely a user will click.
DON’T: Use title tags to spam or over-optimize keywords. If too many users visit your site
and back out, you’ll any SEO boost you may receive.
DON’T: Waste an opportunity. If your website is ranked higher than mine but my title tag is
more enticing to the reader, chances are you’ll lose the customer.

An alt tag is a short, approximately 150-character description of an
image.
The primary users who rely heavily on alt text are those who are blind,
who often use software that reads a webpage aloud to them.
Alt tags also appear when a page is having issues loading images,
serving as a placeholder that explains what the user would see if the
page were loading correctly.
ALT TAGS: WHAT ARE THEY?

POINTS TO CONSIDER ABOUT ALT TAGS
Here’s an example: Some websites show the logos of credit and debit
cards they accept for payment. Let’s say your website does.
For the alt tag, you could simply type “credit card logos,” but what
help would that be for users who rely on the alt tag to understand
your message? Not much.
A better option would be “Visa, MasterCard, Amercain Express, and
Discover cards accepted.” Now your user can enjoy the benefit of a
visual image as well as a concise, helpful description. This description
will benefit search engines as they crawl your site, too.

Imagine that you want to use a picture of a security camera on your
website. Consider what the user experiences with these examples:
ALT TEXT AND VALUE ADDED TO A WEBPAGE
NO DESCRIPTION
No value. You’ll just have to hope the image loads, the user can see
it, and the purpose of the image is understood every time.
“BEST SECURITY CAMERAS AND SECURE FEATURES”
Not much value. It can seem either spammy or inaccurate, but at
least the user will see text if the image isn’t loading.
“SECURITY CAMERAS”
A little value. If the page isn’t loading, the user will know what the
image is supposed to be.
“OUR FACILITY FEATURES TOP-NOTCH SECURITY CAMERAS”
A lot of value! The text demonstrates the image’s purpose and allows
users to learn a compelling reason to rent with your storage facility.

ALT TAGS DOS AND DON’TS
DO: Consider what purpose the alt tag would provide if it were read aloud to every user
visiting the page. Tailor the description to offer useful information.
DO: Write a descriptive tag, especially if the image’s purpose is mostly aesthetic.
DON’T: Write a long string of text. Shoot for approximately 150 characters. As you did with
the title tag, consider what’s most important and use concise language to describe it.
DON’T: Use the alt text for meaningless or spammy text. Imagine landing on a page and
hearing “clean storage unit best storage unit secure units self storage facility.” Always
consider the user’s experience first and foremost.
By putting a bit of thought into the purpose of each image, you can
dramatically improve the user’s experience and set your website apart
as professional and well designed.

MAKING IMPROVEMENTS AND MOVING FORWARD
- What improvements can I make to my title tags?
- Are my title tags descriptive?
- Have I dumped in keywords just to boost SEO?
- If I were looking at a list of results, what would make me want to click
on this title?
- Will users get an accurate understanding of my webpage just by
reading the title?
- Is my location included? Should it be?
- Are there repeated titles between pages on my website?
Now that you’ve spent the time to better understand title tags and alt
tags, you can use the opportunity to make some improvements to
your site. Take a moment to review your pages. Here are some
questions to help you evaluate your title tags:

MAKING IMPROVEMENTS AND MOVING FORWARD
- What improvements can I make to my alt tags?
- Are my alt tags helpful? Or are they just filler text?
- If someone read them aloud to me, would I find them annoying,
unprofessional, or irrelevant? Why?
- Do my alt tags provide additional information not found in the text?
- Would it matter if my current alt tags weren’t even there?
Once your title tags are the best that they can be, spend some time
reviewing your alt tags. Here are a few questions to help you evaluate
your alt tags:

USING HTML TO IMPROVE YOUR SITE’S SEO
Ultimately, taking the time to put yourself in the shoes of your user will
work wonders in revamping your tags. By making these relatively
small changes, your site will inch closer and closer to being the most
visible and most helpful in town.

VISIT US AT WWW.STOREDGE.COM
THANK YOU
for checking out our presentation! If this is your first time finding us,
allow us to introduce ourselves. We’re storEDGE and we understand
your pain points as a storage operator. We create brilliant, bold, and
beautiful self storage software. Demo our marketing websites,
management software, and customer rental center today!

storEDGE Quick Tips: Title Tags and Alt Tags - Why Do They Matter?

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storEDGE Quick Tips: Title Tags and Alt Tags - Why Do They Matter?