One of the biggest hindrances for “on page” search engine optimization (SEO), or seo that takes place on your website, is the misuse of the title tag. Using a proper title tag can help search engines determine keyword relevancy for a certain page as well as increase your clickthrough rate from the search engine results pages (SERPS).
There are several common mistakes that both new and even established webmasters make when it comes to their title tag for their website’s pages. Here we’ll address some of the mistakes made as well as how to improve your title tag for search engine optimization purposes.
Missing title tags are a SEO no-no
Likely one of the worst things that you can do for your website is to leave the title tag blank. When search engines display results in their indexes from a search query, the hyperlinked text from the SERPS are words that are held within the title tag for the page that is ranked. If you fail to use a title tag on any page of your website, it is going to hinder your ability to gain ranking for any keyword or phrase that you might be targeting.
Keyword spamming with title tags
Title tags are meant to be concise descriptors of the corresponding page’s contents. It’s common to see websites that have strings of 5 or more keywords and keyword phrases crammed into the title tag thinking that it will help with search engine optimization. Excessive keyword repetition in the title tag may lead to some form of a penalty by search engines, while using multiple keyword phrases that are not relevant to the web page’s content will do you little good for search engine optimization purposes. For best results with title tags and keyword usage, keep the keywords and phrases related to the page’s content.
Same page title for multiple pages
A website page’s title tag is a descriptor for the page it represents; you should not have the exact same title on any page of your website because the focus of each individual page should be different. Using a different page title for each individual page of your website can help you create a specific focus for each page, which helps search engines to determine relevancy and is overall better for search engine optimization purposes.
How to improve your title tags for search engine optimization
It’s not all that difficult to improve the title tags on your website and its individual pages; small and simple changes can literally make or break your website in terms of its rankings in the SERPS for certain keywords and keyword phrases.
Title tag length
Every major and minor search engine has a general limit to the character usage for the web page title tag. The most widely recommended maximum length for the title tag is 80 characters, but there are search engines that will display 100 or more characters from the web page’s title tag in the SERPS. If you have a page title that is “too long”, the major search engines just crop off some words if the website is displayed in the SERPS.
Title tags - keyword focusing
To get the biggest benefit for search engine optimization, it is highly recommended that you use focused keywords within your title tag. We’re not talking about a string of eight keywords and phrases; two or possible three keywords or phrases that describe what the page is about is sufficient in most cases.
Attention grabbing page titles
In addition to keyword focusing for your web page titles, if it is feasible you could try and incorporate a “catchy” title to garner more clickthroughs from the SERPS to your website. Think about it from a search engine users standpoint; which title do you think would be more attractive to a user if they were looking for information about red stripped ferrets:
“Red Striped Ferrets”
Or
“Red Striped Ferrets: Ferocious and Funny Creatures”
In most cases, the second page title would perk the curiosity of a search engine user, and you are also giving a soft description of what the user will expect in regards to content when they are clicking from the SERPS to your website. Attention grabbing, or “descriptive” page titles can help increase the clickthrough rate from the SERPS to your website in many cases.
Keyword prominence: Important keywords at the beginning of the title
Often overlooked even by established webmasters, the placement of the keywords and phrases within the title can help your search engine optimization efforts. Some major and minor search engines put more emphasis on the words at the beginning of the title tag than the words that are near the end.
On page search engine optimization begins with proper page titles. With a little bit of HTML editing knowhow and a little imagination, you can create website page titles that are not only effective for search engine optimization, but also that can garner you more visitors from the SERPS.
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