If you are looking for ways to rank high on search engines and increase organic click-through-rate of your webpage before this Christmas, try optimizing your title tag. Yes, you heard it right, a title tag is one of the essential parts of search engine optimization (SEO), as it provides the user with context for the page they are about to view. You can rely on a professional SEO company that will consider all such SEO aspects to improve their client’s organic click through rate (CTR) and rankings.
A title tag, otherwise known as the “title element,” refers to an HTML element that exists in the
- Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs): The title tag displayed in a search engine results page (SERP) is the headline of a particular result along with the page URL and meta description.
- Web Browsers: Most web browsers – such as Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla Firefox and so on- will display the web page title at the top of the browser window and/or in the browser tab, to help users refer back to it if they have multiple tabs open.
- Social Media Networks: If you share a link on social media, it will display a snippet with the page’s title tag, featured image, URL, and Meta description.
Why Are Title Tags Important?
Title tags are important because they provide both users and search engines the context of the respective page. That is, it attracts the user to click-through to your post from the SERPs (or wherever they are). A title tag also:
- Helps in creating a positive first impression, as a title tag is typically the first thing a potential visitor will take notice of when performing a search on their browser.
- Helps search engines determine which results to show up or rank for. As we have said earlier, title tags are an essential part of SEO and when a title tag is optimized for a target keyword, it is more likely to attract search engines and improve a page’s visibility on SERPs. Also, Google confirms that if you incorporate title tags with appropriate keywords then it would act as a ranking factor.
- Help search engines categorize your content
- Helps build your brand or provide leverage in the SERP through brand recognition, if you display your brand name in your title tag. This is because, people trust brands and seeing your brand or company name on titles, users may be enticed to click the link which in turn leads to more traffic.
- Increases Click-Through-Rates (CTRs) and drives more users to your content.
Apart from these benefits, another reason why title tags are important comes down to clicks. Since one of Google’s ranking factors is organic click-through-rate and as we all need lots of people all clicking on our own search results, using an appropriate title tag is very important. It sends a clear message to Google that our page is what the people want.
The title element should be a concise, accurate description of the page’s content that helps search engines and users to get an idea of what each page is about. We have to optimize the title tags to compete against the other sites in the SERP and provide users with what they want.
How to Optimize Your Title Tag?
To optimize and make your title tag click-worthy, you have to follow certain best practices. They are:
- Using crisp and concise titles: When you rank in search results, your page title would is the first thing that a user is going to see. Therefore, it’s very important to write a clean, crisp and concise title that will deliver an overall idea of what the inside content will be. It will draw the attention of users and make the user click on your link.
- Include brackets in your titles: One of the latest and popular techniques of optimizing title tags is by including brackets/parentheses at the end of your headlines. It helps to break up your title tag, improve readability and will give you a drastic increase in post views.
For instance, you may have noticed, that whenever someone searches for a particular product or site online they see similar products, but with different title tags, such as:- Bluetooth Noise Cancelling Headphones
- Bluetooth Noise Cancelling Headphones [Free Shipping]
Which one of these options would you pick?
The first title tag is OK, but nothing extravagant. On the other hand, the second title tag, sounds better, more enticing and best of all, it kind of makes you feel more in tune with what to expect from the content piece. Therefore, we all will pick the second option.
Adding bracketed terms at the end of your headlines helps your reader see what he/she’s going to get before even clicking.
From the above image, the user knows right away that the narrative will come from a visual infographic. Before the user even clicks, he/she knows that this post will be easy to consume, full of data, and a discussion about how Google’s free promoted pins work. So while clicking the link, the user won’t be disappointed with the results because they know exactly what they are going to get.
According to a study by HubSpot, “headlines with bracketed clarifications (e.g., [photos], [interview],
, [slideshow], etc.) performed 38% better than headlines without clarifications, suggesting readers are more likely to click when they have a clear picture of what lies behind the headline”.
Here are a bunch of brackets that you can add to your title tags:
- (Updated)
- [Interview]
- [X% Off]
- [New Research]
- (Case Study)
- (New Guide)
- [+Checklist]
- (With Examples)
- [Video]
- (Trusted by X Clients)
- [Flowchart]
- [Visual Guide]
- (No Fees)
- [Template]
- Avoid heavy title tags: Try to avoid heavy title tags that are not understandable for your audiences as it is very boring and won’t foster many clicks.
- Use your keywords at the beginning of title tags: Always try to include your targeted keyword within the beginning of a title, because search engines assign more importance to the first word in the title tag than to the second one and so forth. But avoid keyword stuffing.
- Watch your title tag’s length: After you find the most suitable keywords to use, you want to keep your title tags between 50 and 60 characters. Anything longer could get off in the SERPs. So, if you want to get at top position of SERP and to get a lot of clicks watch out your title tag length as it is a great way to get Google to push that page to the top.
- Don’t duplicate titles over multiple pages: Though coming up with unique title tags for the thousands of pages on your site may seem difficult, it is very important to not duplicate titles over multiple pages. Using a unique title for every title tag you create, shows the value of your content to both search engines and users. It helps search engines understand that your pages are unique and valuable.
- Add emotions in your title: To make your page click-worthy, add some emotions in your title – such as using words like amazing, awesome, actionable, insane, shocking, and so on – but without being deceptive.
- Use numbers in titles: Using a number in your title tag seems to be very helpful with click-through rates. A research by Conductor found that “number” headlines boost CTR by 36%. Among the other four types of headlines – Normal, Question, How to and Reader-Addressing – number headlines resonated most by far – a full 15% more than the second place “reader-addressing.
- Avoid stop words: Try to avoid stop words such as “A, and, so, but, by, it, was, on and with” as they are ignored by search engines and sometimes by users also.
All these strategies will help you write eye-catching titles that can draw clicks to your website. However, optimizing title tags is a step forward towards making your web pages easier to find and more usable in terms of scannability. To rank in SERPs, you also have to write quality content. Optimize the title of your page, based on what you write in your content and by using the guidelines explained above.
A professional SEO company in USA can help in optimizing your website right from your title tags to your content, and thereby attract more users to your website.
