Giving thought to page title SEO will boost the search results of a document with a minimal amount of effort.
How long does it take to write a sentence with less than 70 characters including spaces? Not long at all. Thinking about what to write takes more time than the writing itself.
Google shows no more than 70 characters of a title before it is cut off with an ellipsis (…). As a result, every word and letter counts.
Search Engine User Behavior
Users work fast and scan more than read. This is a common way of doing it:
- Go to the search engine home page and enter a keyword phrase.
- Scan the first few results with an emphasis on No. 1. This is supported by studies showing the top position can get a 35 to 40 percent click rate.
- Check for the keyword phrase first in the title, then in the bolded keyword phrase in the meta description and possibly in the bolded keyword in the URL, if it exists there.
- If necessary, refine the first choice by scanning or reading the additional words in the meta description.
- Click on the first choice based on prominence and relevance.
- If the resulting page and site don’t fit the need, click on the back button and look for the next choice.
Title Tactics
With a 70-character limit, a title might contain up to 10 or 12 short words. That assumes the writer of the title wants to use the entire title space. Some don’t.
The keyword phrase is the first consideration. The phrase usually consists of two or three words. One word has little relevance. Four words may reach a small and highly targeted audience.
For effective page title SEO, the phrase should be highly similar if not exactly the same as the document’s <h1> tags, article body, image alt tag, etc.
Some SEO practitioners believe that a title should consist only of the keyword phrase.
That approach has one major benefit: It’s easy and quick to read.
It also has two major detriments: It lacks a selling point and a brand.
The Selling Point
Our hypothetical searcher above sees four or five titles that look appealing. All of them have the keyword phrase in bold. Four of the titles are long and one has only the keyword phrase.
The search needs more information to make a choice. That increases the odds that the title with only the keyword phrase will be dropped from consideration.
Why take the chance of going to a giant bloated page with multiple pop up ads?
The selling point is based on benefit. It says in a few words that the document contains relevant, original and transparent (not an affiliate marketing trick) content that will fulfill the original search.
Brand Management
Branding is an important online marketing tactic for many sites. It is the ability of a site to get people to remember the site name so that they come back to it and become loyal and frequent users.
If the title has any space left, it is a simple practice to add the site name after the keyword phrase and selling point, such as Page Title SEO Best Practices – Promise Media.
If a user searches enough in a narrowly defined topic area, and if a site has a large number of pages relevant to that area, the user will be more likely to see the brand repeatedly in the title, remember that brand and visit the site directly.
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Promise Media provides online marketing strategy for content-rich Web sites. It also publishes a guide to best Caribbean vacations to test online tactics.