When I browse the internet I am shocked to see just how many big websites which don't correctly utilize the title meta tag to extract as much weight as possible to their keyword they are optimizing for. From my experience the title tag is one of the most powerful onsite seo factors. We all are aware that back links with anchor text using the targeted page keyword is the most important factor but it never fails to amaze me just how much people ignore this powerful meta tag.

Listed below are some ways you should and should not use the title meta tag:

keyword density - when people build websites they often try to use up as much of the title tag as possible. This simply isn't a good idea. The more keywords that are present in your title tag dilute the weight of the keyword you are optimising for. For example "find the best and cheap blue widgets on the internet" instead should just be "cheap blue widgets". If you have another keyword you are optimizing for then use a "-" or "|" to separate them. E.G. "Cheap blue widgets | discount red widgets". Another thing to take not of is to use your primary keyword first. The first keywords within a title carry more weight.

Don't use company name - as we have said above it isn't a good idea to use unnecessary words in your title tag, for this reason it is not a good practice to use your company name. In most cases it won't contain the keyword you are optimizing for and will dilute the weight of the keyword you are optimizing for.

Keep the title tag unique - this is one of the most common mistakes made by webmasters. It is extremely important to make sure that every single page within your website has not only a well optimized title meta tag but also they must be unique. In some cases it can be very hard to check every title tag to see if it is unique or not but one easy way to do this if you have hundreds of pages on your web site is to setup Google webmaster tools. Over time Google will index every page and there is a section which suggests where you have any duplicate titles within your website. Quite obviously if you do find any go ahead and change them using the optimization we have learnt so far to create them.

Don't capitalise your meta title tag - simply don't do it, it can look spammy and Google don't like it!

Make your titles grab attention - well this kind of comes down to keyword research too as your main keyword is what will be on your title tag. Try to make sure your keyword/title is something that a visitor wants to see or view.

Make sure you don't forget your title tag! - this is the most important factor and one I have seen so many times. Making this mistake can really impact your initial ranking, and even when you do implement the title tag after realising you have to finally wait for Google to crawl and update the page.