A few things I wish I knew sooner, a first site primer.

[grynge]

The Title is an HTML Tag

So you're saying it's the TITLE TAG

[JJMcClure]

.4 Be cautious of load times, there is a lot of debate about load times affecting search ranking. Common wisdom would say between 5-7 seconds load time on a page is within acceptable bounds. If you have recently read that milliseconds factor in, find a new blog to read. If your html based and an image is going to be reused over and over, embed it in the css. The less that’s inline (on page code) the lighter weight the page.

I think that this is an important point if ranking well is an issue. Page load times can affect your rankings now since Google want a faster SERP, presumably because they think their users will like that. Firebug (a browser extension that allows you to inspect page elements) has a speed test built into it and the 'Site Performance' section in Google Webmsater Tools will give suggestions on how to improve page load speeds. Usually when Google 'recommend' something it's a good idea to pay attention.

Google Adds Page Load Time To Quality Score Algorithm (Search Engine Land)

[Clinton]

Title is an element, not a tag.

Best rule of thumb is to write your content as if search engines didn't exist, if you get it right for humans it will work well for bots, that's what they're looking for anyway

I agree 100%. However, it's important to note that some of those who spam the SEs do very well too. There's a lot of junk in the SERPs.

Don't try and con search engines unless your 100% sure you know what your doing, ever!

Yes. And if you are, that's a far better way to get traffic than by following their ridiculous guidelines. But seeing this is Website 101 I must admit it's not something I'd advise for the newbie webmaster. When you start off it's probably best to play by their rules.

[JJMcClure]

Title is an element, not a tag.

I see what you're driving at but I think it's a confusing way to look at it since everything in an HTML document is an element, the DTD is an element, Title is an element, Body is an element, Divs are elements etc etc. In the case of the Title the important part of this discussion is that it was described as a mate tag and it's not Meta data so it isn't a meta tag/element, and to describe it as that is simply wrong and potentially confusing because they fulfill a different function.

It's an important distinction since users see Titles but not meta tags and search engines pretty much ignore meta tags. I'm not just splitting hairs, it matters and this thread is aimed at beginners who need to get it right from the off.

To describe the Title as an element is like saying A is a Letter, yes it is but more specifically and more meaningfully in the context of letters being used in a document, it's a vowel, where T which is also a Letter, isn't a vowel. Do you see?

HTML <title> Tag - WC3 Schools

[grynge]

I see what you're driving at but I think it's a confusing way to look at it since everything in an HTML document is an element, the DTD is an element, Title is an element, Body is an element, Divs are elements etc etc. In the case of the Title the important part of this discussion is that it was described as a mate tag and it's not Meta data so it isn't a meta tag/element, and to describe it as that is simply wrong and potentially confusing because they fulfill a different function.

It's an important distinction since users see Titles but not meta tags and search engines pretty much ignore meta tags. I'm not just splitting hairs, it matters and this thread is aimed at beginners who need to get it right from the off.

To describe the Title as an element is like saying A is a Letter, yes it is but more specifically and more meaningfully in the context of letters being used in a document, it's a vowel, where T which is also a Letter, isn't a vowel. Do you see?

HTML <title> Tag - WC3 Schools

Surely describing it as the meta page title gives a good description of which title I was talking about, your calling it a tag title then confuses people into thinking it is the title tag that can be added to images/url's etc..

[hooperman]

HTML <title> Tag - WC3 Schools

The title is an element and we use the <title> tag to mark it up.

[tke71709]

More bickering around here than at a prom.

I think the gist is out there, tag, element, whatever...

[JJMcClure]

More bickering around here than at a prom.

I think the gist is out there, tag, element, whatever...

The 'bickering' about whether or not it's tag or an element has completely distracted everyone from my original point that the Title tag is not a meta tag. That matters.

Surely describing it as the meta page title gives a good description of which title I was talking about, your calling it a tag title then confuses people into thinking it is the title tag that can be added to images/url's etc..

Now you're talking about the Title attribute, a completely different thing from the page Title and it's you that's going to further confuse people by incorrectly calling it a tag.

Good grief.

[grynge]

Now you're talking about the Title attribute, a completely different thing from the page Title and it's you that's going to further confuse people by incorrectly calling it a tag.

Good grief.

I never mentioned tag you did, I corrected you by saying it was an element which you then said I was incorrect and that it wasn't an element, I think it is you confusing the people.

[Clinton]

Back to the OP ...

It does not matter if you opt to use a CMS (wordpress, drupal or Joomla) or a traditional html platform (word+, dreamweaver, expressionweb) to build your first site.

I agree. One word of caution: Do it on your own domain rather than blogspot or wordpress. That gives you more options later on, including the ability to sell the site if you ever want to.