The Title Tag Override Function in Rivista

Joel Gales Sullivan
In Rivista, a title tag is automatically created for every page, but there are times when it's smart to use the title tag override function. When the natural title of an article does not contain good keywords, it is best to use the the title tag override rather than rely on the title tag generated by the system.

The reason Rivista was built to generate a title tag for every page in the system is to ensure this essential component for optimizing content for search engines in the HTML is always present. How it works is if there is no information filled in the title tag field at the publication level, a title tag using the publication name and the geographical area is generated. For issues, the additional information added to the title tag would be the month and year of the issue; for articles, add on the title of the article. This generated title tag can be written over using the title tag override field, which is just above the Meta Description and Meta Keywords fields in the article and issue editor interface.

To understand when it is a good idea to use this feature, let's look at a fictional article about the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, and his purchase of a new Tesla Roadster electric car. Let's say that the two natural titles for the article were these: 1) San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Buys Tesla Roadster and 2) Clean, Green and Climbing the Political Ladder. The first title is full of key words that are likely to be repeated in the body of the article, while the second title is catchier but bereft of good keywords. A search for 'clean' and 'green' would be much more likely to yield a search engine results page full of eco-friendly cleaning products rather than the fictional article we're posting.

But should the title be changed, or should we employ the title tag override instead? Often is is desirable to keep the title of content posted on the Web the same as it is in the print publication, and, likewise, not to have keyword-rich (but boring) titles throughout the magazine or website. In this case, use the title tag override function to keep the snazzy title while optimizing the page for the web.

A good title tag to place in the override field for the article above would be the following: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom Buys Tesla Roadster – March 2008. That's 65 characters including spaces, contains exact keywords and has the date of the issue the article was published in. In this case, everyone gets what they want: the writers and editors can be creative with article titles and still publish SEO-friendly articles with good descriptive title tags.

Joel Gales Sullivan is Content Manager at Godengo and an avid student of search engine optimization, especially in regard to its use with Rivista. If you have questions or comments regarding optimizing your site, please contact her at joel(at)godengo(dot)com.

Posted by Super on May 5, 2008 at 01:46 PM in Search Engine Optimization | Permalink