On-page SEO: Page title

As a first post in a series of posts about on page optimization, I will try to explain how to optimize the page title for better keyword relevance and targeting.

Importance of the <title>-tag

The title-tag is without a doubt the single most influential of all the on-page factors. The basic rule is to have unique content in the title-tag for each page. The content should optimally be created so that it is a logical sentence containing the page’s most important keyword as the first word of that sentence. The content of the <title> is what is displayed in the search engines results pages and as such also important for the click through to the page.

For the use of the keyword in the <title> tag to have any effect it is also important that that keyword is used in the body text of the same page. 

Unique, automated, editable titles on all pages 

The Content Management System (CMS) for a website needs to include support for, editable, unique title-tags on every page. A good idea is also to make sure that the CMS automatically can generate page titles based on patterns and allow the user to manually override them if needed. This way you will now for sure that every page has its own unique title tag that is automatically generated, but still have the possibility to manually override single title tags to optimize them further. 

A common solution for optimizing the title tag

One common solution is to make the title consist of two parts:

One primary element consisting of the primary headline of the current page. This would be the name of the product/service or product category.

One secondary element, consisting of category names and, optionally, the company name.

The maximum title length should not be more than 70 characters including whitespaces. This is based on the fact that Google will display the full title if it is less then, or equal to, 70 characters. 

Example

Current page title | Subcategory title | Category title | Section title – Company name

or optionally the title can be constructed as a sentence like this

Current page title in Subcategory – Category – Section at Company name 

Stay tuned for more posts about on-page optimization.