Although marketers are aware of the importance of certain tasks, they often fail to do them. One example of that? SEO title tags. Even though marketers know that paying attention to customer reviews can help with SEO and marketing goals, many still do not give them the attention they need.
36% of SEO experts agree that the title tag is the most important SEO element. This is because title tags are essential in helping search engines understand what your page is about, which then allows them to index it accordingly.
Did you put effort into writing a dedicated SEO title for your last few pieces of content, or did you just use the default your SEO tool or CMS sets up for you?
It can be easy to fall into the habit of skipping dedicated optimization when you’re looking to cut out a step or two from your content marketing workflow.
A study from Backlinko suggests that there is not a direct correlation between headlines optimized for keywords and higher rankings on the first page of search results.
Even though there is no clear connection between a high ranking and a good headline, there are still advantages to making your headlines better.
If you want people to click on your articles, having a well-written meta title is key. Not only will this increase the amount of people who see your content, but it can also lead to more organic traffic and even higher conversion rates.
SEO Title Tags
We need to be on the same page before we can continue. Title tags are the text specified as the page title in the HTML of a web page, like a blog post or landing page. The purpose of meta descriptions is to give a brief summary of the meaning of the page or describe the content within.
The page’s H1 tag is often used for the same or similar title as the title tag. Many marketers choose not to write a dedicated and optimized headline for each piece of content. However, this post will show you how important it is to do so, and how easy it is to accomplish.
The title tag of a web page is typically displayed as the title of the tab or window in which it is open. It may also be used for bookmarks or shares of the content.
Moving your site up in the SERPs largely depends on how effective your title tags are. Your title tags are like your site’s first impression—make it a good one.
Best Practices for Writing Great SEO Title Tags
What can you do to make your SEO headlines more eye-catching than those using the default settings? There are a few things to consider when optimizing a website or piece of writing. These include the length of the text, how often keywords are used, the quality of the copywriting, how well the text matches the message of the site or article, and the formatting. Let’s tackle those one by one.
1. Headline Length
Google’s length limit for headlines is based on pixels, not characters. The number of characters displayed before it is truncated with an ellipsis is different, depending on the width of those characters.
Your title should ideally be between 50 and 60 characters long, and no more than 65 characters. When writing headlines, keep in mind where the text will be cut off and use keywords and copywriting techniques accordingly.
2. Keyword Usage
If you want to improve your ranking on search engines, it is recommended to use the primary keyword you are targeting in both general on-page optimization and your SERP listing. As previously mentioned by Backlinko, most of the top 10 results for a query contain the keyword.
usually, if a keyword appears in the top 10 results for a query, that keyword will also appear on the page If you are targeting more than one keyword, you may want to consider including additional keywords that have lower priority than your primary keyword.
For example, note how the headline below naturally includes both “email management tips” and “inbox zero”:
However, tread carefully with this as you still want the headline to read well to humans — not a random jumble of keywords.
Focus on a keyword
Or two.
Google is a software that is getting better at understanding how people use search engines. But the search engine also needs your help in understanding what your pages are about.
You can improve your website’s search engine ranking by including the most relevant keyword in your title tag. For more information about keyword research, check out our guide.
To select a keyword for your page title, you can use a keyword research tool to look for words that are relevant to your topic and have a high search volume. You can also look at the titles of similar pages on other websites to see what keywords they are using. First, we need to look at the two different types of keywords- short tail and long tail. You’ll need to use a combination of both to be successful.
Head keywords
These are popular keywords that are in high demand and very competitive. Hence the name “head” keywords. These are also referred to as “broad” keywords. A Head keyword is a single word or short phrase that is descriptive of the main topic of a piece of writing.
Here are a few examples:
- Men’s shirts
- Drones
- Laptops
Achieving a high ranking position for a competitive keyword is going to be difficult for the average blogger.
Long-tail keywords
These keyword phrases are variations of the head keyword that are not as commonly searched for. They live at the bottom of the search demand curve. This is the part of the curve that flattens out and looks like a tail:
Less popular long-tail keywords are easier to rank for because there is less competition, and they also tend to be a better match for what the searcher is looking for.
Here are some examples to highlight this:
- Men’s grandfather shirts
- Cheapest drone for kids
- Best laptop under $500
These keywords are used by people who are about to purchase something. They have a higher success rate because they are more exact. This means that you should target low-volume, specific keywords rather than broad terms.
Here’s how we’d approach that for a site selling men’s shirts:
<title>Men’s Shirts —
Casual, Polo, Tee and Formal—
Plus sizes </title>
This title tag features the head keyword “men’s shirts” but also the long-tail variations:
- Men’s casual shirts
- Men’s polo shirts
- Men’s tee shirts
- Men’s formal shirts
And these variations too:
- Men’s plus size shirts
- Men’s plus size casual shirts
- Men’s plus size tee shirts
- Men’s plus size formal shirts
This is only a small part of the possible ways this could go.
Long-tail keywords are keyphrases that are easier and require less time to rank for, and often don’t require extensive link-building campaigns to make them rank highly in search engine results pages.
3. SERP Intent
Pretty much every other blog post on the topic of writing title tags includes advice like, “Write for humans first and search engines second.” That’s kind of true—a good title tag should appeal to humans first, but it would be silly to ignore what Google shows a preference for ranking:
Many marketers are busy trying to reinvent the wheel. The world’s best title tag means nothing if Google ignores it.
Google provides examples of the types of title tags it prefers.
Look at the SERP for the keyword you want to rank for to see how your competitors structure their title tags and keyword variations. And then come up with a better version.
4. Make Titles Unique
It is important to have unique titles for each web page on your site. This will help your site to rank higher in search engine results. Google does not recommend using the same title for multiple pages or using a generic title.
And that includes paginated content. If you have a small website, it won’t take long to do this.
If you have a larger e-commerce website with thousands of product pages, it could take days of grinding manual work to fix. The best way to solve this problem is to use dynamic data fields to automate the process.
The way you do this will depend on which Content Management System you use. This is beyond the scope of this article. You should avoid using default, boilerplate, or duplicate title tags as much as possible.
5. Headline Copywriting
Let’s talk about how to make your headlines stand out in the search results. If you want your title tag to be effective, it needs to be appealing to humans, not just the algorithms that determine rankings.
You should write an attention-grabbing headline that is consistent with what the searchers want, and makes them curious.
If you want to win clicks from your ranking page, you need to make sure your page is as high quality as possible. This means that each page on your website should have a different headline, even if the topic of the page is similar to other pages on your site. This will help your website appear more relevant to users who are searching for information on your site.
Pitting your content against itself or getting flagged for duplicate content are both bad outcomes that you want to avoid.
6. Message Consistency
When writing headlines, it is important to create a consistent message that matches the overall theme of your piece. Your headline and target keyword should match what the searcher is looking for. This is called “message match.”
Your title tag and H1 tag need to match. Some birds can fly high while others can only fly low. Some birds can fly high, while others can only fly low.
If your H1 tag is too long, it would be beneficial to shorten the title. Your title tag and headline should be about the same thing, using some of the same language.
7. Headline Formatting
One final thing to think about when choosing your title tag is how it will look when it’s published.
The way you want to format your text will depend on things like where your primary keyword is located in the headline, how long your headline is, and if you’re including your brand’s name.
If you have a shorter headline, you can use your exact H1 headline. Edit the text to fit within the correct character count while still including the primary keyword. You can also simply condense it to fit the correct character count, as long as you can do so while still easily including your primary keyword.
You can also make your headline more effective by “front-loading” it, which means starting off with your primary keyword, then adding a “descriptor” after it. For example: With shorter headlines, there might also be room to include another branded element, like your brand name or the content category.
Add a separator between each step in the process- If you decide to do this, make sure to add a separator (“-“). It is up to you to decide whether or not to include that information, and it is a good way to try out different styles to see what is most effective for your audience.
8. Search Intent
Before you even start thinking about keywords and optimizing your title tags, stop for a second and think about your target audience. If you understand what your potential customers are worried about, it will be easier for you to make your product stand out.
Create a mini-profile of your ideal visitor by answering the following questions:
- Their age
- Their gender
- Their employment status/disposable income
- What they’re most afraid of
- What or who they love most
- What personal or business goal are they trying to resolve by searching Google?
There is no need to survey a large number of people. If you understand your target audience, you shouldn’t have too much trouble achieving your goals. If your content isn’t getting the engagement you want, it might be because of the content itself.
Tools to Help Write and Optimize Title Tags
If you are concerned about the amount of work you will have to do to optimize your title tags, don’t worry! There are many tools available to help with marketing and SEO tasks. Some of the crowd favorites are:
If your website is on WordPress, you can use Yoast’s SEO plugin to set your title tags and preview how they will look on search engine results pages.
Spotibo’s Google SERP Preview Tool allows you to see how your content will look on the SERP before it is published. This is useful if you are not using Yoast, as it provides another way to see how your listing will look. This tool predicts how your text will look based on the number of pixels it will take up.
Portent’s SERP preview tool is similar to Spotibo but more tailored to your needs if you want to preview the SERP listing on multiple types of devices. Although the preview setup is more complicated than the above tool, you can customize it more to suit your needs.
ClickFlow is a paid tool that offers more advanced features than the other free tools on this list, like the ability to test title tag variants.
Headline Analyzer Studio by CoSchedule is a tool that analyzes headlines to rate their strength and provides suggestions for improvement. This tool will take into account things like character length as well as how likely people are to click on the link based on the copy.
Conclusion
Currently, you are more knowledgeable about the proper way to create title tags than 75% of the individuals who claim to comprehend SEO. Title tags can improve your SEO by making your site more visible to search engines.
To avoid spamming, simply follow best practices. Don’t overcomplicate the process. Focus on mastering the basics.
You will only see positive results for your site if you implement this strategy.
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