The title tag is the most important SEO tag search engines use to determine how your website is indexed. This tag alone tells search engines what your web page is about and its intended audience.
However, the title tag is also the clickable link on search engine result pages. Therefore, the title tag needs to clearly tell search engines how to index the site while also enticing enough to make searchers want to click on it.
In this article, we are going to cover some of the basic rules for writing SEO title tags and ways to make the title tag enticing for searchers to click on.
What Is The SEO Title Tag?
A title tag is an element that is coded into every single web page that specifies the title of that page. As mentioned above, they are displayed as the clickable link on search results and they are also used as the headline that social media outlets automatically grab when the web page is shared.
The title tag is kind of like the title on the cover of a book. Based on the title on the cover of a book, you can get an idea of whether or not the book will be of interest to you. The same holds true for an SEO title tag. When your title tag is displayed on a search result or in social media, a user will be able to determine whether or not the web page is of interest to them.
Why Is The SEO Title Tag Important?
The SEO title tag is the most important tag because it is the first thing on a web page that is indexed in search engines. When a user performs a search, search engines go through their index to provide the user with the best results.
Additionally, when a web page is shared on social media and other platforms the title tag follows it as a clickable element. In the SEO world, we call any link back to your website a backlink. A backlink that contains your keywords as a clickable element (aka… anchor text) provides more validity about what your web page is about to search engines.
How To Decide On Keywords To Use In Your SEO Title Tag
Google provides several free tools to help research keywords for your title tag. For starters, you will want to check out Google’s Keyword Planner and Google Trends when researching keywords.
SEO Keyword ToolThese tools are great for beginners but if you are serious about getting your website to the first page of Google you will need more tools, or hire a SEO expert. If you don’t want to hire a expert to do the work for you, we suggest checking out SpyFu. With a 30 day money back guarantee and just $49 per month, you would be hard pressed to find a better keyword research tool.
Below is a great video on how we use Google’s Keyword Planner, Google Trends and SpyFu to do keyword research…
I Have My Keywords Now What?
Once you have determined the keywords you want to target with your SEO title, it’s time to get creative. This blog post is a great example of how we got creative to use our keywords yet create a title that entices searchers to click through to this post.
Since the keyword we are targeting for this post is “SEO Title Tag” we could have been boring and simply used “SEO Title Tag” as our title tag, but would that really entice you to click? I doubt it.
Instead, we got a little creative and used “SEO Title Tag Tips For Instant Search Rankings In 2017” as the title tag for this post. Much more enticing to click on don’t you think?
People love free tips and every website owner wants their website to rank on the first page of search engines. Additionally, we threw in 2017 to show relevance to a time when these tips were being used for first page rankings.
How Long Should The SEO Title Tag Be?
According to Google, the SEO title tag should contain between 10 to 64 characters, including spaces, in the title tag to display properly. If you must go over 64 characters, try to keep the title tag at or under 70 characters.
Where Should I Place Keywords In SEO Title Tag?
Keywords should be placed at the beginning of the title tag without exception! Well, there are some exceptions but do your best to keep your keywords as close to the beginning as possible.
The reason you want to keep your keywords at the beginning of the title tag is because the beginning of the title tag carries the most weight. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, the title tag is the first thing search engines see and is the first thing they index. Therefore, when a search engine goes to retrieve results from its index it is going to start by looking at the first few words indexed.