Inclusion and placement of your website name in the title tag

When do you put a website name in the title tag? If so, where should it go? Reading a blog earlier today, there seem to be a lot of varying opinions on this. The argument against is that it’s overkill and that it’s not valid for the title of a page: the title should contain a summary of the content and that’s it. But there’s a few compelling arguments in favour of including it.

It’s not just in search results…

The title is also used in bookmarks – if I have a hundred bookmarks with the name “latest news” or “login”, it’s not particularly helpful. Favicons are important in this regard too.

Reputation is king

A title with a site name can carry your reputation. If you’re a small site, this probably isn’t too important. In fact, I don’t care about your site name if I don’t regard your site as important – it may even irritate me and inhibit clickthru’s.

Take an example of searching for a newsworthy story. There are a lot of sites that recycle content. I’m not really interested in them and would rather go straight to the New York Times or BBC, because I know their content is original and credible(ish). In this example, I scan down the left hand side of the search results to find a site I am familiar with, then look at the link title and content description to see if they fit the search.

I may also scan search results for sites I don’t want. For example, I hate opening links from experts-exchange, because I don’t have a subscription and therefore don’t want to follow their links. Once again, I can use the title up front to further filter my results.

Knowing who the site is, also helps me to understand what kind of information I am going to be receiving. If I am searching for a person’s name, I can either click on the facebook link if they are a personal friend, or the Wikipedia link if they are a public figure.

No reputation? Work harder

If you haven’t established you site as a credible content provider, users are more likely to click on your link if you are listed above a credible provider; provide a unique description and have an accurate title with your site name at the end.

In summary

I believe that site names should be on titles. If you are famous, put it in front. If you aren’t, put it at the end. When will you be famous? I can’t answer that, I really can’t answer that.