An SEO title tag, also known as a meta title, is a crucial element in HTML that specifies the title of a particular web page. This tag is displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs) as the clickable headline for a given result and is crucial for usability, SEO, and social sharing (Moz, 2021).
Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing use title tags to gain a primary understanding of what topics or ideas your web page covers. As such, SEO title tags offer a critical opportunity to send strong relevancy signals to search algorithms and can significantly influence your page’s rankings. This connects to a core part of SEO, which involves structuring your site content so search engines can understand and present it effectively (Backlinko, 2021).
The appropriate format for an SEO title tag is typically: Primary Keyword – Secondary Keyword | Brand Name. For instance, ‘Women’s Shoes – Designer Footwear | XYZ Store’. In terms of length, most SEO experts recommend keeping your title tags between 50-60 characters to ensure they display correctly in SERPs as Google cuts off titles after this range (SEMRush, 2021).
You can improve the effectiveness of your SEO title tags by incorporating keywords relevant to your web page’s content, writing descriptive, unique titles for each page, and incorporating your brand. Avoid using excessive or irrelevant keywords called keyword stuffing, and ensure the tag reflects the content to provide a good user experience (Hubspot, 2021).
Furthermore, SEO title tags are important for social sharing. Networks like Facebook and Twitter use these tags when content is shared from your website, impacting how your content is presented in social media feeds (Yoast, 2021).
To summarize, an SEO title tag plays a significant role to attract the right audience and boost your website’s overall SEO performance. It’s one of the first things both users and search engines assess when determining the relevance of your content.
Sources:
- Moz. (2021). Title Tag. https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag
- Backlinko. (2021). Title Tag: What is a Title Tag? https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/title-tag
- SEMRush. (2021).How to Write Perfect Title Tags for SEO. https://www.semrush.com/blog/title-tags/
- Hubspot. (2021). The Start-to-Finish Guide to Optimizing Your WordPress Blog Posts [Plus a Checklist]. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/optimize-blog-posts-seo
- Yoast. (2021). SEO basics: How to set a page title and meta description in WordPress. https://www.yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/page-title-meta-description-wordpress/
