How To Write The PERFECT SEO Page Titles
SEO page titles are still one of the most important elements of SEO.
It is a fact that they are a direct ranking factor but not only that. They also influence the click behavior of the users in the Google SERPs.
In this article we will give you SEO title examples plus the process how we create them.
We would like to give you insight into the following topics:
- A large selection of examples applicable to all types of websites
- How to implement creative text copies into your page titles to boost CTR in the SERPs
- How to differ yourself from the competitors by using special characters
- Explained examples for lead generation and ecommerce sites
- Tracking rankings and CTR in Search Console to gauge impact of changes
With the content of this blog article you should be well prepared to dominate the SERPs of your niche.
With that said let’s get right into it:
- 1. What Is An SEO Page Title?
- 2. Why Do SEO Page Titles Matter For SEO That Much?
- 3. How Long Should The Optimal SEO Page Title Be?
- 4. Best Practices For SEO Title Writing
- 5. How To Add Creative Copies To Drive Traffic To Your Site
- 6. Example SEO Title For eCommerce Product Pages
- 7. Example SEO Title For Blog Content
- 8. Tracking Keyword Rankings From Title Changes
1. What Is An SEO Page Title?
Many of you reading this article right now may know what a SEO page title is. But here is a short definition for those who don’t know what this is:
A page title is an HTML element that specifies a page’s title, both to search engines and humans. It is used to trigger users to click on the search engine result.
But where do you find the page title in the SERPs?
2. Why Do SEO Page Titles Matter For SEO That Much?
People were often wondering if page titles are a direct ranking factor.
We can say: Yes they are!
But why are they so important?
Basically they inform the search engine about the content of the page. So Google is able to understand the value of the page more easily.
Besides that those titles can increase the CTR of a page in the SERPs. AND CTR is a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm as well.
The page titles can be easily changed with the help of a CMS like WordPress.
As seen above you can easily set up the page title. There you have two options:
- You can set it up manually.
- You can set terms that generate the page title automatically.
3. How Long Should The Optimal SEO Page Title Be?
There is no exact character limit.
That’s because Google sets the limit based on pixels. (600px)
Translated into characters it’s something between 50-60 characters. That varies from device to device and also which type of search is made.
We recommend to keep the characters under 60. In this case you can expect 90% of your titles to be shown properly.
But that’s enough for the pretalk let’s dive in to the writing process…
4. Best Practices For SEO Title Writing
Let’s begin with the basics.
For us, the following formula works best:
Primary Keyword + Secondary Keyword | Brand Name
IMPORTANT: This is not recommendable for the homepage. We will give you more information on that later.
First step for you has to be that you identify the keywords for the page you want to create the page title for.
Let’s look at an example:
These are the keywords we identified for our landing page for “Services”:
Remember the formula we gave you above?
Primary, Secondary, Brand
Using this formula we came up with the following:
Munich Marketing Services – Expert Consultants | Consulting Clan
With this combination we can cover a number of major keyword variations (services, expert, consultants) in the local scope of Munich.
This title will help us rank in the SERPs but what about clicks?
As we look on the SERPs for our main keyword we recognize, there is definitely room for improvement.
Those results all look very similar to another.
So we have to do something to stand out…
5. How To Add Creative Copies To Drive Traffic To Your Site
Let’s think of possibilities we can make a title more clickable to searchers than they are now:
1. Use action or description verbs
- Buy
- Shop
- Call
- Boost
- Learn
- Visit
- Check
- Preview
Would be some examples of words that could drive more clicks to the site. That is because they invite the searcher to engage with the page.
Of course you have to think logically which terms you are using, because it wouldn’t be useful at all if you use the term “call” when your business has nothing to with a phone line that’s staffed.
2. Use the searchers emotions for your advantage
A great example would be monetary references. Here you should add words like:
- FREE (free shipping,freesonult,ect.)
- Discount
- Coupon
Or you add words that infer urgency:
- Limited
- Only
- Seasonal
And what also works great is to use words that infer a total sense of fullfilness:
- Exact
- Complete
- Total
3. Special characters to differ from the competitors
The tactic we are about to tell you is great because it doesn’t take much space in your title while making a huge difference in the visual monotony of the SERPs.
For example:
- #
- %
- ™
- [brackets]
- “quotes”
Alright.
Let’s put everything together we mentioned so far.
We took our service page as an example. Let move on from here.
Taking all of the mentioned steps together we’ve come up with this:
#1 Marketing Services Munich™ – FREE SEO Consult // Consulting Clan
So what did we do here? Let’s break this down:
- Main and secondary keywords are taken care of with “Marketing Services Munich” and “SEO consult”
- We added in FREE to make it more appealing
- As special characters we used the #1 and ™ to break up eye tracking
That’s it! We’re done.
But what is about writing titles for home pages?
Here we recommend a different format:
Brand: Summary of Site/Main Benefit/Main Keyword
Brand name should always be first because it’s the first thing the user looks at.
At Consulting Clan we use the following:
Consulting Clan // We Are YOUR Digital Marketing Agency
Digital Marketing Agency both embodies what the business does while also using our main keyword.
6. Example SEO Title For eCommerce Product Pages
For commerce pages we can follow the same format.
Main Keyword – Second Keyword | Brand
Again except on homepages.
Let’s use the company Laces Out as an example.
We are now creating a page title for white shoelaces:
White Shoelaces – “Flat” Body – 54″ / 63″ / 72″ – Laces Out
- Main keyword is “white shoelaces”
- Secondary Keyword is “flat white laces”
- Because we are giving the size in the title the user instant becomes a more detailed insight
- The special characters ” and / draws the eye and distinguishes the result from other sites
7. Example SEO Title For Blog Content
So let’s move on to the blog content pages.
Look at this:
75 of the BEST Nike Air Huarache Colorways – Laces Out
- Main keyword is “best huaraches”
- Secondary Keyword is “huarache colorways
- “best” is important in terms of ranking because it infers to be an informative blog post
- Last step is knowing what the searchers are looking for –> in this case a page that compares shoes and does not necessarily sell them
8. Tracking Keyword Rankings From Title Changes
While giving all these instructions about changing page titles of your website it is important to measure the impact of the title changes.
There is a simple way to do measure this in the Google Search Console of your site.
- Login to GSC
- Navigate to Performance
- Click on the tab called “Pages”
- Find the page which you’d like to measure, click on it
- Click on the “Queries” sub tab
Now you see a list of the queries at the page level to gauge the impact of their rankings and CTR over time.
You should check this on a regular basis and implement the data into sour ongoing SEO reporting to note the impact of your changes over time.