SEO: Get higher Google pagerank by naming files and/or blog post titles optimally!

Before reading ahead…
please note that this is not something which can burst traffic to your site/blog overnight! At Devils Workshop, we are against of all kind of spamming but we value your hard-work and thus would like you to help you to get maximum out of it! Thus lazy people and spammers quit here itself!

Now for hard-workers…
Well I have lots of tricks for you guys and will post them here time to time. Lets start now without wasting your more time!

While naming your files or blog posts titles…

First lets talk about optimal filenames:

  • Never use filenames like ch1, ch2, … or 1, 2, 3, etc…
  • If you want hierarchy go for ch1-Intro, ch2-Types, etc…
  • Try to use longer filenames with as much keyword as possible.
  • If file is static HTML file then always make use of title tag : <title> also try to use title upto 100 characters.
  • Use underscore (_) instead of space to separate multiword filenames
    • e.g. use “rahul_bansal” instead of “rahul bansal”

Now its Blog Posts Titles:

  • Make sure all keywords comes earlier!
  • Try to minimize use of junk words like of, are, hurry, surprise, important, read-this, etc atleast in first 30-40 characters.
  • Enable Post Pages which give each of your posts their own unique web page, in addition to appearing on your blog’s front page. (For Blogspot Blogger, Go to Settings >> Archiving >> Enable Post Pages and select “YES”)
  • Try to use maximum available length of blog post titles (normally upto 100 characters)

Reasoning:

  • First lemme me remind you what makes a URL (i.e. Uniform Resource Locater) with a simplest example!

URL = <protocol e.g. HTTP> + <site name> + < optional path> + <filename>

  • Also remember title of a page is displayed in your browsers top most strip (it is often concatenated with browser name itself, but don’t bother about this browser name part)

With these two terms we will dissect now blog post titles and filenames together!

  • Blog post title forms Title of post pages as well as URL!
  • If post pages are enabled, every blog post gets converted to static HTML page with a file name which makes is part of URL!
  • Post pages are nothing but files dynamically created so again convention for file names and post page title overlaps! (thats why covering both in same post here 😉
  • Thats why I insisted similar things like keeping file names and blog post titles longer as much as possible!
  • Unfortunately for files their name and title tag need to be chosen separately!
  • For blogs post tiles goes in both places! But only first 30-40 characters of post title gets converted to filename i.e. name of post page!
  • Thats why be wise to use maximum keyword as early as possible in post title!
  • Always remember never exceed title more than 100 (while 150 is allowed). Search engine may treat you spam if they discover titles are toooooooo lengthy!

How it benefits:
First lets look at an example : A user hits Google with query – Using Orkut Mobile

The output is highlighted in following screenshot (click on it too enlarge)

Look at coloured lines

Point to be noted: Whenever a user hit a query highest weight is given to URL and blog post titles (ofcourse within same pagerank group)
Thats why all this trouble for post titles and file names! It may appear tedious but soon you will be habitual with it! Got it! 😉

Some notes… (You can skip this if I already bored you enough!)
PS1: This small looking post took my 3-4 hours! There are countless search engine optimization exist which applies to Google and other search engine also (I know only few… may be around 50) So feedback is necessary if you guys want me too spend more time writing on this issue!

PS2: This is first time I am writing on topic – SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This field is generally considered as webmasters arena but I see no reason for non-technical people to loose valuable information it carry! Thats why I tried to write keeping in mind naive user! If you think this could be written it better terms please spare some time for your valuable suggestions (via comments preferably)

PS3: is better than XBOX 360! 😛

18 Comments

Prashanth April 19, 2007

Hi,
The article is pretty good for even non geeks.You explained it very smoothly.Many of your points I am already using many points explained here.But didn’t knew this will help in SEO.
Thank You,

Rahul Bansal April 19, 2007

@Prashant
Thanks for your comment!
Now I can write more on this topic! 🙂

Leon August 28, 2007

Thanks much. I didn’t know about that lengthy post title tip until now.

Rahul Bansal August 28, 2007

Your Welcome Leon… 🙂
Comments like yours will surely help me to write more on this topic! 🙂

SELaplana August 29, 2007

i am sometimes thinking that a long title will hurt our blog’s SEO. I am not really an SEO that’s why I am wondering about this.

Rahul Bansal August 29, 2007

You are right about getting hurt by long titles.
But there is always some cut-off as I mentioned above!
Normally 80 to 120 character is optimum length while anything above 150 will be treated as spam!
What I was talking about are small titles, around 30-40 char long which surely can be lengthen for SEO! 🙂

VaaSU June 17, 2008

Hey Rahul,

Hope you remember me 😉

I’ve commented in Devils workshop long time back.. 😉

Great Tutorial Rahul & Congrats your site is Rocking.

your Alexa rank is going high 😀

I’ll be active in devils workshop from today! hope i can get some good SEO tips here 😉

VaaSU

Rahul Bansal June 20, 2008

@VaaSU
Welcome back VaaSU … 🙂
I remember you very well buddy…

I will write more on SEO if you want… 🙂

Preetam Purbia August 11, 2008

Hi!

Great information,
i started blogging in year 2003 but never get a good pagerank on google.
well this information helps every one

Thanks
Preetam Purbia

swashata July 20, 2009

haha! PS3 is better than XBox-360 😛 btw I just moved from my blogspot domain to my own domain! [I am still on blogger though]! How much time it can take to get ma PR back 🙂

Mr Bho's Blog December 11, 2009

I love this post, very good information. I’m beginner.

solanki January 15, 2010

great seo trick

Aman @ Technolism.com September 19, 2010

Reading this post tells me how many mistakes I have been doing… 🙂

Thanks for sharing mate…