Twice in the past few weeks, I searched for something and found exactly what I was looking for in the titles of the web pages. Wow, score! It would have been wonderful except that the companies deceived me. For the sake of this article, we’ll call them Company A and Company B.

In my first search, I wanted information on a local bar and grill that just opened near my house. I noticed the link and website title did not match, but clicked on it anyway to determine the motives behind their differences. The link took me to Company A’s website, a competing local bar and grill. The title of the article said something to the extent of, “Will [Company] Make it in [City]?” In my humble opinion, Company A had no business pretending they were going to give out information on the new company for which I was searching. They should be promoting their own site in a better way. I can imagine their page having a very high bounce rate because people did not intend to land on that page. Not only did it seem like it did not belong on their website, but they also littered the page with the other company’s name and city in which the new restaurant was opening.

It’s one thing to strategically integrate other keywords into your copy, it’s another to clutter your article with them and drive people away, irritated.

Company B, a popular TV network, had an article about the best online deals. The title mentioned the company where I wanted to shop, so I thought I found what I wanted. Again, deceived. There was no mention of that company in the article, despite the name of the title.

The moral of the story–make your content relevant and don’t deceive those that visit your site!