The Road to Better Page Titles

When it comes to SEO, your page title is everything.

It is probably the most important search engine optimisation factor as it exists to help the search engine understand what your page is all about. And if it understands that, you’ll appear in the right search engine results pages.

But many people confuse their page title and their post title.

Your post title is exactly that, the name you have given to your blog post. Your page title is usually auto generated and therefore tends to be the same as your post title.

But the key to optimising your SEO is to make these different. Many platforms, such as Word Press, allow you to easily alter your page title to something that will carry more SEO weight.

What does that mean?

Well, to make sure your post comes up in relevant search engine results make sure you include your keywords in the first half of your page title. You will only have 65 characters to play with so make sure you make every one count by creating a page title that is meaningful.

This is something that should be done for any website, not just a blog.

But select your keywords carefully – don’t cram them all into your page title because that won’t make sense. Use the word(s) that’s most relevant to that page and then create something that answers the searchers question.

So, for example, if they were searching for a site to help with dog behavioural problems, a site with a title such as “Dog Behavioural Problems – Advice and training videos” will show that that website probably has the answer they are looking for.

Another common mistake is to repeat the page title in the META Description. Remember your page title is for SEO; your META Description is there to attract the click-through. It should convince the searcher that your site is the one that will help them so make sure it is meaningful.

Getting your page titles (or title tags) right is vital for a successful SEO campaign. After all, if you don’t clearly tell the search engines what your website is about, how can it list you in the appropriate search results?

Open a new page in your browser and open your website or blog. What is your page title? Is it really working as hard as it can?

This simple change really can make a huge different in your website’s effectiveness.

Author: Sally Ormond, professional freelance copywriter with Briar Copywriting.