Crafting your website title tag is a win-or-bust matter in getting your website to rank in search engines. In most cases, website title tags are the first things a person sees about your website. How you make your website title can greatly affect how people view your website.
Website title tags are the deciding factor on whether a user clicks or passes upon your site. When done right, a website title can bring the target audience to your website.
For this, you have to take your website SEO into consideration. A compelling SEO title is a mix of many ingredients, just like a Michelin star-worthy dish.
So What is a Website Title, Really?
A website title comes under many names like: SEO title, website title tag, page title, meta title, and the simplest of them all – title tag.
Basically, this is the title you give to each of the pages of your website as it appears on search engine results. Like a book or movie name, it’s the first thing that attracts the most attention. It’s also what Google, Bing, and Yahoo see when it crawls into your site.
Many times, it gets confused with the main title hat or the main heading you read in the page’s content because in many cases, it will be similar. But the main heading on a page is not what we’re talking about today.
The website title tag is the HTML title tag for your website, the one that appears on the search results list which you click to get inside the website.
These are website title examples:
What is a Website Title Tag’s Purpose?
Essentially, it gives an overview of what your website page is about. Naturally, users use your title tag to gauge the content they’ll get from your page. It gives them a rough idea if your content can fulfill the purpose of their search.
Aside from users using it to gauge what they can expect from your website, the website title tag is what search engine bots rely on to gauge the suitability of your website’s content to specific searches.
There are more than 200 signals for a search engine to rank your site in search engine results. Your website title tag is considered as one of the main ingredients in on-page optimization.
Check here to learn more about SEO.
Also, a website title tag helps in brand recall and awareness. If you already have an established following, having your brand in your website title can make it easier for people to distinguish your website from other results they see on the search list.
Lastly, your website title entices users to visit your page and thus affects click-through rates, a vital ranking element. Simply said, the more people you can compel to visit your site, the higher chances for your website to rank high in search engines.
To know more about web tags, you can check out this blog.
Why do you need them? Know the reasons here.
Knowing all these will make you conclude you can’t just randomly pick a website title. You have to make it as eye-catching and as descriptive as possible because it will be the first impression for your website.
Here are the best practices you can apply in crafting a rank-worthy website title to generate traffic for your website.
1. Start With Researching
Your website title tag must be strongly anchored in SEO. You have to use words people mostly use in researching something. In the SEO world, they call these words as keywords.
Keywords are 2-5 words a user usually types on search boxes to look for something. How do you know what words to use?
One way is by thinking like a user. Put yourself in their shoes, if you are searching for something, how do you type it in search boxes?
For example, if you’re interested in buying a bike, you’ll probably type: “bike shops in NYC” to find what you’re looking for.
Brainstorm ideas, find the mix of words you would usually use when searching for something, and write it down.
You can also use free keyword search tools like Ubersuggest and Keywordtool.io.
Here’s a blog to read if you want to know more about traffic.
And here’s another one if you want to make your site load faster which also helps with getting more traffic.
2. Choose A Primary Keyword To Target
After doing your research pick a keyword to target and if you can, put them at the starting part of your website title.
Why?
Because bots crawl your website from left to right. Putting it near the start of your website title makes it faster for bots to crawl on them, thus quicker for them to know the purpose of your site. This makes your website title tag an SEO title.
But a word of caution:
Avoid unnecessary fillers. Do not stuff your website title with irrelevant words just to make it rank. Make it as simple and natural as you can because search engines are already smart enough to see through this strategy and might be the reason for your website to get buried deep in the search engine results.
If you need more help with SEO, not just with your website title, you can turn to these blogs for help.
3. Avoid Truncation, Check Your Title Length
Search engines limit the space they give for your website title. If your website title is too long, you’ll see the last words cut off like this:
This is what truncation looks like, when the website is long enough to not fit in the standard pixel width search engines allow.
As a rule of thumb, limit your title to 60 characters. You can do this by getting rid of “stop words” like “in”, “the”, and “to”.
Also, remember that the number of characters includes spaces, so you have to account for those too when making your website title.
Don’t forget to optimize for mobile-friendliness too!
4. Do No Use All Caps
Using all caps puts unnecessary emphasis on your website title, and frankly, it’s a bad practice. Do a quick search about anything random, and it’s less likely you’ll see website titles in all caps.
Using all caps doesn’t get your site to rank better. Just stick to sentence casing (capitalizing the 1st word in a sentence) or title casing (capitalizing the first letters of words).
5. Craft Website Titles For Human Readers
Earlier we mentioned search bots crawl on your website title to gauge if it should rank you or not. However, bots are not the only ones who read your website title, human readers too.
Keep in mind that the most critical audience you have are humans. Bots see your website title, but humans will react and click on your website. The more clicks you get from humans, the more chances of your website to rank higher.
Remember the milk to cereal ratio, find the balance. Take note of bots, but never forget human readers. The more natural it looks, the more compelling it is for humans to click on them.
If you think the title is not enough to share information, the meta description is the best place to put them. Don’t squeeze everything on the website title.
6. Know The Best Format For Your Website Title
Website title anatomy for businesses include:
· The brand name
· The keyword you want to rank for
· And if there’s still space, the location
For blog title it would be:
· The site name
· The keyword you want to rank for
· Catchy phrase to add intrigue
7. Make Your Website Titles Unique
Google doesn’t rank duplicates, and that includes website titles. If every title tag is the same, search bots will get confused and won’t be able to rank your website page well.
Plus, writing your website title uniquely will help users remember your page better, enhance your presence, and make it easier for them to come back.
8. Make Your Website Title Attractive
This is quite obvious, but you couldn’t emphasize this point enough. A stunning website title implies stunning website content. If your website title catches attention, users will be more compelled to check your content out.
Making your website title attractive includes making sure it’s aesthetically pleasing, no typos, no evidence of clumsiness.
Remember, your website title is a make-or-break factor. Check these characteristics of a highly searchable website to know more.
Don’t get overwhelmed! Creating a website title is not like moving a mountain, just apply each tip one step at a time, and soon enough, you’ll be able to incorporate all the tips to create a rank-worthy website title.
If you need more help with SEO, not just with your website title, you can turn to these blogs for help.
