Top 10 Don’ts for a Genealogy Web Site Title

1. Don’t neglect to use one consistent title throughout the web page or the rest of the web site. People tend to fluctuate between titles, phrases, or keywords, which can create confusion as visitors navigate from one page to another. Choose one title and stick with it.
2. Don’t use redundant, useless words or phrases such as:
   ---“Welcome to the home page of….”
   ---“Home Page of…”
   ---“Personal Genealogy Web Site for….”
3. Don’t choose a title that isn’t descriptive enough, such as:
   ---“My Family History”
   ---“Smith Family History”
   ---“Our Family Tree”
4. Don’t choose a title that isn’t completely honest or truthful, such as:
   ---“The Only Site You Ever Need to Use”
   ---“Every Smith Birth Record Ever Made”
   ---“The Complete Genealogy for the Johnson Surname”
5. Don’t forget to include important items in the title, such as:
   ---Surnames
   ---Place names
   ---Anything that is topic-specific to the content of the site
6. Don’t include the title only on a custom-made graphic, and not in actual text on the web page. Search engines can’t read graphics. You must include plain text on the page as well.
7. Don’t load up the TITLE bar with a list of keywords in the hope that this will improve search engine hits and indexing. Wrong. That is an Internet old-wives’ tale. It doesn't help improve your search engine hits, but it does make for a very messy looking title bar, bookmark, favorite, or search engine hit.
8. Don’t forget to include the actual title of the web site in the TITLE bar. Some people remember to put everything else but the title in that spot.
9. Don’t leave the TITLE bar blank or empty so that the web browser default of “home” or “index” or “Insert Title Here” or the URL appears there instead.
10. Don’t use the site’s domain name in the TITLE bar unless that is the actual name and title of the site as well.

Examples of concise, descriptive, and useful titles:

• Descendants of David H. Ingle, Towner County, North Dakota
• The Story of George & Kesiah Smith, Exira, Audubon County, Iowa
• Smith, Johnson, Knox, Nash, & Frederick Families: Iowa to South Dakota
• Greengrass Cemetery, Anywhereville, Ohio - Complete Transcription, 1998

Good luck!

Cyndi