Hey there Boosters! Welcome to another edition of The Booster Seat! Today, we are going to be talking about title tag optimization. Take a walk with me.
Hey, so today we are going to be talking about <titles> or Titles. We are going to be using three W’s to help teach us about titles. First W is: What?
What is a title?
A title is a piece of code on your website that is going to tell Google (and basically every other browser out there) what the title of that page should be. Titles should be accurate, relevant, and concise. That’s what a title should represent to be relevant to the page it is optimizing for.
Next W is: Where.
Where are the titles on a page displayed?
Although titles can be displayed in multiple areas, there are two main areas I want to talk about – browsers and search engine result pages.
In the browser you’ll see it in the title tag here at the top of your browser page. On the SERPS like on Google, you’ll see your title here. Below, you’ll see other information known as snippets. When this is represented on Google, remember this is the first impression many users will have to your website. That’s why your title is so important. In fact, your title is one of the most important factors of search engine optimization.
The next W is: Wise Tips.
Wise Tips for Titles
First and foremost is, user focused. Your title needs to be optimized for user experience. Whenever we are talking about optimization of anything, especially your title, we are going to do it with the user in mind.
Let’s talk about length. In short, the length is 512 pixels. That doesn’t mean a lot to a whole lot of people, and it isn’t easy to understand. It is approximately 50 or 60 characters. That is the length Google allows in the snippet we just talked about. That’s what we optimize for.
The usage of pipes (i.e. the | character located above the ENTER key on most keyboards) is kind of a general statement It is best practice. It is very clean. You don’t want to use other forms of punctuation, you want to use pipes. You can start using pipes to separate phrases or key concepts.
One of the important factors we talked about last week is duplicates. Duplicate title tags are annoying, confusing, and lose value when it comes to your search engine optimization. You don’t want to do that.
Next are keywords. Should you use keywords in your title tag? There is no simple answer. Remember, we are focusing on the user in our optimization and that is how you’ll want to use keywords in your title tags. In short, keywords – yes and no – use them as appropriate for your users.
Lastly, just a little tip to remind you that Google changes! Google will change the way your title displays. It’s ok. Don’t worry about it.
Ok, that’s it for today.
Stay cool!
