Good page titles

by mickey on July 6, 2007

I find myself often talking about the importance of good page titles, so I thought I’d get all of the info into one place.

The page title is very important for a number of reasons:

  • It was what people see in their toolbar when your site is open.
  • It is the default text when someone bookmarks a page on your site.
  • It is a very important factor into how well you rank in Google and other search engines.

Keep in mind those three things when creating your titles.  This is not the place to be saying things like “welcome” — use the actual page for that.

My standard suggestion for a church site is to use “church name – city, state – page info”.  Here are some examples:

  • First United Methodist Church – Atlanta, GA – Youth Ministry
  • Bostwick Lake Baptist Church – Saginaw, MI – Children’s Events
  • Mt. Paran Church of God – Marietta, GA – Sermon Archive

You get the idea.  Also, it’s usually best to spell out your church name rather than abbreviate it, as in “First United Methodist Church” rather than “First UMC”.  You want to rank well for “methodist” and “church”, don’t you?

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  • Kevin

    I like to put the current page BEFORE the church name and location, for when they are bookmarking, “Youth Ministry” will not be hidden in the bookmark window.

    For instance:

    “Youth Ministry | Our Community Church | City, State”

    instead of:

    “Our Community Church | City, State | Youth Ministry”

    Any commenters …. Just my two cents!

    Kevin

  • http://www.churchwebsitehelp.com Mickey

    Kevin,

    That’s a good point. In retrospect, your way is probably better.

    The main thing is that EITHER way is better than 95% of churches currently do it. :)

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  • http://www.wabashfirstumc.org Carol Berg

    Hi, Mickey,

    Thanks for this information. I thought my page names were decent, but I can tell that they are certainly lacking. This is one improvement I can make no matter what level of knowledge I have. I didn’t realize that spelling out the church name would make a difference in how Google ranks the website, but that makes sense. I am also of the opinion that it would not hurt to follow the state by USA because not all people who look at a website are from the United States and know where what we are talking about. I feel that way since we have so many people on our website from foreign countries…especially the Philippines, India, the UK, and Kenya. It may be because I am in touch with people in these countries.

    I am in the process of redesigning our website. I am going to simplify it considerably and use pictures more.

    Mickey, this may not be the place to ask this question, but I will ask. If it isn’t, you can let me know. Our website has considerable information that would fall into a miscellaneous category…Bishops letters, stray information, Bible Challenge, etc. What is a good way to present them and with what kind of category title? People seem to enjoy the material, and I enjoy finding it and offering it. It is not specifically about the church, but the material is “church stuff.” I was thinking of just having an “Odds and Ends” category in the navigation. Let me know your thinking if you have time.

    Thanks!
    Carol

    • http://www.mickmel.com/ mickey

      Carol — Excellent question about the “odds and ends”. I hesitate to ever create a section of just “other” stuff, but that’s really what you have.

      You’d be best to put those items in proper areas; perhaps put the “bishop letters” in the “about our church” section, for example, but that might not really be possible with all of them.

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