Title Tag SEO

Title tags in SEO are the holy grail to telling search engines the topic of a web page.

So why then do so many websites ignore putting the time and effort into a good title tag?  It beats me!  I mean you wouldn’t publish a book without a title so why publish a web page without a title?

Let’s dive deeper into the title tag so you can see just how important it is.

What Is A Title Tag?

A title tag in SEO is a meta tag you specify on each page of your website that should tell search engines and Google searchers what each individual web page is about.

The title tag is displayed in a variety of areas throughout the internet.

When somebody is on your website, the title tag will always be shown in their browsers tab and, depending on your settings, it can also be the very first line of text on your webpage.

More importantly, when a user is performing a search on Google or any other search engine, your title tag is displayed as the clickable link on the results page.

Finally, your title tag can show up on social media platforms like Facebook when somebody shares your page in their newsfeed.

Why Are Title Tags Important?

Your title tag is important because it is the main text that tells search engines what your web page is about.

Besides building links and creating fresh quality content, your title tag is the most important aspect of SEO.  As seen in the chart below, your title tag makes up 9% of each page of your websites ranking factor.

What Comes First The Title Tag or The Content?

Now that’s kind of a trick question.  Before you start writing, you should have a pretty good idea of what you are going to be writing about.  Therefore I like to find my title tag first and then start writing my content.

However, just because you have already written your title tag, that doesn’t mean you can’t change it after writing your content.  Setting your title tag first gives you clear direction about what you need to focus on to make your content align with your title tag.

How Do You Find Good Keywords For Your Title Tag?

To find good keywords you are going to need a good keyword tool.  I suggest using SEMRush’s keyword tool.  This tool will tell you how many times a keyword is searched for on a monthly basis and how difficult it is to rank for a particular keyword.

If your website currently ranks pretty well on search engines, you may be able to rank for a highly competitive keyword.  However, if your website is struggling on search engines, you should consider a keyword that has a fair amount of monthly searches but is not too difficult to rank for.

The key with the title tag is to drive relevant searchers to your website to have them engage with your content.  As your engagement increases, so will rankings for other keywords that may be more difficult to rank for.

I Have Some Good Keywords, Now How Do I Implement Them In My Title Tag?

The placement of your keyword in your title tag is very important.  You want your #1 keyword at the very beginning of your title tag.  As I mentioned before, your title tag specifies what your web page is about.  Therefore, having your main keyword at the beginning is telling search engines that that keyword is the most important to you.

Typically I suggest just focusing on 1 keyword per page because it leaves no doubt what your web page is about and what you are focusing on for ranking purposes.  However, if you feel like using 2 keywords just make sure you separate them with a – or a |.

Additionally, your title tag should not be longer than 60 characters.  Anything over 60 character will not help you in rankings and will display poorly in search results.

Time To Put Your Title Tags To The Test!

I hope your get some good use out of this post and start to develop some quality title tags that drive laser targeted traffic to your website.

If you found some useful information in this post please tell me about it below.  Or better yet, if you implemented some new title tags, tell us what they are and the page you are trying to rank in the comments below.  It would be interesting to see some of you on the first page of Google!