The <title> tag is one of the most important on-page SEO ranking factors, and often appears in the search engine results pages (SERPs) as the title of the page/site.

In this post I delve into the title tag further…

Make Titles Make sense

As the title is often used, its important to make it read well, as well as be SEO friendly. Try provide a call to action, without sounding tacky.

High concentration

Try avoid using stop words such as and, or, is etc – they dilute the title and make the keywords algorithmic influence weaker – nobody likes watery orange juice, titles should 100% orange with juicy bits!

My name is…

Its worth putting your company name in the title, however you don’t want it to overshadow other title’s keywords so I recommend having your site name at the beginning on the homepage, and the end for all other pages like so:

Homepage Title – [Company Name] – [Few other Keywords]
Pages within site:
[Page specific title] | [Company Name]

Pipe up

I like the pipe divider character, usually the room-mate of the blackslash key \ available by holding the shift key. Hyphen and commas are good too.
1.| pipe
2.- hyphen
3., comma

Length?

Don’t just stuff or pad – keep it related to the page/content the title is representing, try not to exceed 10 words, or around 65 characters including spaces. Be concisely descriptive.

Keep it real! Be original!

Don’t just have the same title throughout the site, and don’t just copy a sentence/extract from the main content, be crafty – type an original compelling title loaded with keyword nutrition.

Keyword Bonus!

To give a certain keyword(s) a real bonus, ensure it appears in the <title> tag, and also appears in your <H1> tag at the top of the page.

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