Tags and Titles Enhance Your E-Reputation

So far this series about managing your online presence has covered:

• Your name
• Basic tools, such as profiles, comments websites, blogs, articles, media hosting
• Headings and hyperlinks

Tags and titles are common optimization tools on websites, blogs, and media hosting sites. I haven’t seen a professional profile site that allows you to use them extensively, yet.

Approach titles and tags like you would approach headings and hyperlinks: Choose your words carefully.

Tags

Be sure to use your name as a tag when you publish a blog post or upload media to YouTube or another media sharing site.

Blogs and media hosting sites generally give you an option to tag your posts. Tags help site users search for information.

The option to tag usually appears below or to the right of the posting function. Some sites separate tags with commas. Others separate tags with just a space.

I recommend you tag with your first name, last name, and your full name without any commas. If I was working in a site that separated tags with spaces, I would enter my name like this:

kasha frese kashafrese

You should also include tags for your post’s subject matter. This will help position you as an expert in that field. (Positioning yourself as an expert could be a subject for a another whole series of blog posts!)

Titles

Start titles with your name, when appropriate.

Titles are usually available for posts, pictures, and hyperlinks on blogs and media hosting sites. Add titles whenever you have the option, and make them relevant to the material. Including your name in a title will help a post rank well on search engines.

I recommend that you begin your title with your name, if it seems appropriate. When people skim, they pick up the beginnings and endings of text blocks. If your title begins with your name, it will register with people who are viewing the page.

If you have access to the coding for a web page, create a title in HTML for the page. The page will be alphabetized by its title when someone bookmarks it, so use your first or last name as the first word of the page title.

If you’re working with a system that allows HTML and visual editing, you can create code for the page title without knowing a lot about HTML. A free, 5-minute tutorial from W3 Schools will teach you everything you need to do to create a title in HTML.

Tags: HTML tutorial, kasha frese, search engine optimization, SEO, tags, titles