SEO: Titles and URLs

A good discussion is brewing on my Typepad SEO post. Titles and URLs came up and I responded with the following comment. I present it here as a post because titles and URLs are important for SEO, but URLs are more important, especially over time.

Titles and URLs are very important. Over time, URLs are probably more important. For example, www.SoUrban.net/Learn-SEO is a great URL for a post about learning SEO. Also, when others link to this post, they will most likely use the URL, which contains the keywords "learn seo."

This is called off-site optimization. If many people link to this hypothetical post with its URL, then the URL would be more valuable than the post's title (which should contain "learn seo" too.)

Shortening your titles so they contain numbers does you no good. Regarding SEO, links in Twitter are of no value because Twitter uses nofollow's on outbound links.

Make sure your titles and URLs contain the keyword phase you are optimizing for and pay attention to outbound links. My favorite tool for checking links is Firebug.

Please leave any SEO questions in the comments and I'll be sure to answer.