How To Optimize Your Website’s Title Tags For SEO
25th October, 2016 by Neil CuminsEven your title tags can give your website an SEO boost.
When it comes to title tags, using the right words will mean big returns in SEO and unique visitors; if you miss the boat, you may find yourself up a Google stream without a paddle. Let’s look at where you can find title tags, what to put into title tags on your site, and why they’re important.
First, let’s start off with where title tags go. If you’re on a desktop computer right now and are reading this from a browser, look up to the tabs you have open right now. See where it says the title of each page in the page’s tab? That didn’t happen by magic, that happened by clever title tag utilization. The only exception to that is when a page has an article and there is a headline at the top – then the title tag is automatically generated from the headline.
Another spot you will have seen a title tag displayed is in links to different sites on social media posts, such as Facebook. When you link to a different site and Facebook shows a preview image of the page, the title tag is displayed directly below that image. This title tag then has the ability to potentially grab a larger pool of viewers outside the standard search engine results.
Finally, the place you’ve probably seen title tags the most is in a page of search results. When your search engine of choice pulls up a page of results and you see those blue clickable links, those are all being fed by the title tag. Search engine result titles are often the first thing that viewers see and what they will use to judge if your page has what they want, giving you that ever-valuable click and site visit.
How do you get these title tags onto your site? Title tags don’t just happen by magic. They are a part of the HTML code on a webpage. If you’re comfortable with HTML coding, then pop your title tag in the <head> section, like this:
<head>
<title>Your SEO-optimized Title Tag Goes Here</title>
</head>
If you don’t consider yourself capable of such feats of computer wizardry, website builders will often have a spot to put your title tag – WordPress, for example, labels it a “Tagline” and instructs users, “In a few words, explain what this site is about.”
Now you know what a title tag is and how to put it on your site, how do you know what to put in your title tag? First – and this is kind of a no-brainer – your title tag should describe what is on the webpage. This may seem like a piece of advice from Captain Obvious, but it bears stating overtly here. If you have a page about penguins, it would not make much sense to give it a title tag of “Tigers.”
Next, flex your keyword muscles when you choose a title tag. Choose keywords that are relevant to your topic and are going to garner the most interest in potential site visitors. Think outside the box on this – going back to that penguins reference, Antarctica, bird, and waddle would be good keywords, but Happy Feet and Pittsburgh may give you some extra results that you didn’t expect.
Title tags are a great tool to add to your SEO tool belt and further fortify your website’s arsenal for generating site visits.