Page titles are important for SEO, and for your wider online marketing strategy, for several reasons. Those reasons include:

• Page titles are a ranking factor that Google uses to get a better understanding of what is on your page
• Google displays page titles on search results pages which means page titles are important for encouraging users to click through to your website
• Your web browser also displays page titles as labelson tabs
• Social media channels display page titles when your link is shared

Therefore, it’s important you take steps to optimise page titles for SEO. It may be something you will need to work on in collaboration with your SEO provider in Auckland. After all, you know your business, products, services, and customers better than anyone.

How to Optimise Page Titles

Make sure your page titles are unique

Google is a stickler for unique content. That requirement to ensure the content on your website is unique extends to page titles. Plus, having unique page titles means it is more likely they will appeal to your audience which, in turn, means they will deliver better results.

Here are the key points you need to remember:

• All pages on your website need a completely unique page title
• Make sure you accurately describe what the page is about
• You can include your brand name in all page titles, but make sure it is at the end

Make Page Titles Appealing to Readers

Page titles help Google understand the content on your page, but they are also used by people when deciding on whether or not they should click or tap to visit your website. Therefore, your page titles must appeal to your target audience.

Our tips to achieve this include:

• Your page titles should give users a clear indication of what they will find on the page
• Use your page titles to assure readers you have the answer to their query
• Talk directly to the reader rather than describing the page from the perspective of your business
• Be authentic
• Including your brand name, as mentioned above, can provide users with a level of reassurance, particularly if they are familiar with your company

Include Keywords

Including keywords in your page titles helps Google understand the content on your page. Keywords also help users understand that you have the answer to their query.

There are some points about keywords and page titles you need to remember, though:

• Include the main target keyword for the page
• However, don’t stuff the page title with keywords
• In particular, don’t use a keyword, or variations of a keyword, multiple times in the same page title
• Use keywords as close to the start of the page title as possible

Make Your Page Titles the Correct Length

In terms of SEO, the length of your page titles is all about what Google displays on search results pages. As for helping Google understand the content on your page, there is no length limit. However, how much of your page title it displays on search results pages does depend on length.

In other words, if you make page titles too long, Google will cut them. When this happens, users might miss important information so may choose to visit another website instead of yours.

So, when it comes to page title length, here is what you need to know:

• Page title length is all about space, i.e. how much space the page title takes up. Therefore, you need to think about characters rather than words. Also, remember that some characters take up more space than others. An example is W which takes up more space than I.
• 50 characters is the optimal length for page titles
• You may be able to stretch this to up to 60 characters depending on the characters used
• Don’t use more capital letters than you need to as they take up more space than lower caps letters

Don’t Neglect Page Titles

Page titles are all too often overlooked in website SEO strategies. They are more important than people think, though, so make sure yours are fully optimised.