How to Create Search Engine-Friendly Page Title Tags
It is very important that every blog post and page on your site have title tags that are optimized not only for search engines but for humans too. In fact, page titles are considered by Moz to be “the second most important on-page factor for SEO, after content.” Your page title should be unique, catchy, and ideally have one of your important keywords. Read on to learn how to create search engine friendly page title tags.
What is a Page Title?
When you search for something on Google you will see a page title at the top of the listing. That is what we are targeting for our technical SEO strategy.
Make sure that while you are editing your title tags for search engines that you also edit your meta descriptions (since they can be edited in the same panels and also have a huge SEO impact).
How To Write A Page Title Vs A Headline
Writing an SEO page title and a headline (the blog post title for example) are often treated the same; however, there may be reasons to make them slightly different, as they can serve different purposes.
When writing your SEO page title, you may want to consider a shorter length so that it appears neatly on the SERP (Search Engine Result Page); whereas, it may not matter how long the post title is on your blog layout. If you make your SEO page title too long, it will get cut off with ellipses … Make sure to keep your page title under 60 characters. You can use either the Moz Preview Tool or the Yoast SEO plugin if you have a WordPress site to see what the page title will show up like on SERP in advance.
Where To Place Your Focus Keyword In Your Page Title For SEO
For every web page or blog post you should have one focus keyword in mind (what would someone search in Google to find this information?). Try to include this focus keyword in the page title. Ideally, you want to phrase the title to show the keyword near the beginning so that both the search engines and humans will read and process it right away. That being said, make sure that your page title still reads naturally. If you have to make a decision between a title sounding natural versus having the keyword show up as the first term – you would want to choose the natural-sounding title. This is because at the end of the day Google will always choose and evolve to choose to serve content that appeals to humans first.
How To Write Attention-Grabbing Copy For Your SEO Page Title
The best way you can compel people to click on your page through search results is to have a catchy, click-worthy page title. Do this by stating the benefit of your page. What topic will this reader learn? What results will they achieve?
Instead of just naming your page title in the SEO editing panel of your site: Photography SEO – why not name it something more descriptive and result-driven like: How to Increase for SEO Wedding Photographers. You can also use your keyword research to help inform which phrases have more monthly search volume and then choose accordingly (since the reason we focus on SEO in the first place is to increase our organic search traffic to our website).
Rules To Writing a Search Engine Friendly Page Title Tag
When creating a page title keep in mind these rules:
Every page title must be unique. You cannot have any duplicate titles. (Otherwise how will Google know which page to rank over the other?)
Your page title must still be catchy and enticing for a human reader. After all this is the first thing people are going to see in order to make the decision to click on your page or not.
Your page title must accurately reflect the actual content of the page. The more the page title and content match well, the better indication this is to Google that it is a high quality source and not a scammy source. (Remember Google is trying to act as a giant encylopedia of the web and wants to show the best matches with the highest quality content).
Your page title must be short (under 60 characters) for it not to get cut off by Google with ellipses.
If you can fit your main keyword for that page or post in the title – do it. Try looking up which keyword phrases have the most monthly search volume and pick those ones to use.
How To Edit Your SEO Page Title For Your Website
How To Edit Your SEO Page Title On WordPress
Download the free SEO plugin for WordPress by Yoast. You can then click on any page or post and scroll down to the bottom and edit the meta description for that page. Make sure to update the page after you’ve edited and you are good to go!
How To Edit Your SEO Page Title On Squarespace
In the Home Menu, click Pages.
Hover over the page title, then click the gear icon to open page settings.
Click the SEO tab, then enter your description in the SEO Description field.
Click Save.
How To Edit Your SEO Page Title on Showit
Go into your page and click the menu option called: ‘SEO Settings.’
Add your meta description to the box called ‘SEO Title.’
Click Save.
How to Edit Your SEO Page Title on Wix
Click Menus & Pages on the left side of the Editor
Click the relevant page
Click the Show More icon
Click SEO (Google)
Enter the page title
Go Forth, and Write Good SEO Page Title Tags!
I hope that this helps you understand how to create search engine friendly page title tags, and as always if you have any questions about how to improve your SEO reach out via email at info@boopdigital.com or comment below or on social!
