In this post I am going to discuss an on page ranking factor related to a websites page titles. This will specifically look at how you should format your page titles in order to maximise your chance of ranking high on a particular keyword.
What and Where is a Page Title Tag?
The page title tag is located within the <head> section of a websites source code. An example is shown below for reference.
To get this view simply click your right mouse button and select “view page source”. The head section is always located at the top of your source code file. Everything located between <head> and </head> is part of your head section.
There is a significant correlation between the keywords used in your page title and the potential for rank improvements against those keywords. As a result you should include the keywords you wish to target organically within your page titles. Pretty simple huh?
Here is some additional points to consider when building your page titles:
Consider Click Through Rate
There is no real ranking benefit from using a pipe ( | ) or hyphen ( – ) or even an arrow ( > ) to separate your keywords in the title tag. You should consider however the effect each symbol might have on click through rate when a user sees your result in the search engines. Personally I nearly always use the pipe, but I can see some occasions where an arrow or hyphen might look better. Test it out and see which looks better in the results.
Limit your Page Titles
Try to limit your page titles to around 65 characters to ensure that your page title when shown on Google et al remains full, rather than showing “….” on the end.
Target Keywords, But Don’t go Silly
Don’t just randomly keyword stuff, all of your keywords within the title tag should have some relationship. For example don’t put SEO Leeds | Horse Riding | Free Trainers.
Think Brand Name
Include your brand name either at the beginning or end of all your page titles. It’s good to get your brand name out there and might just help drive that click through rate up, especially if your brand is already known in the industry.
Think Usability and match up Header Tags
Repeat your page titles in your header 1 tags. Whilst the overall SEO ranking benefit may be minimal it is good from a user experience perspective that they can match up the page title they clicked on to the page title they see when they view your website.
Be Consistent
Consistently use the same page title format across your website. For example, if you use the pipe symbol on one page, use it everywhere. If you include your brand name at the end of your page titles, make sure it isn’t at the start on other pages.
Hopefully this has proved useful. More to come!
Ben
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Another good blog. Back to basics but essential when ranking within the search engines. Its something i need to re look at on my website. Although im within the industry you always have a tendancy to miss aspects of SEO out. I guess i shouldnt but its the nature of the beast.
Cheers Ryan
I bookmarked this link. Thank you for good job!