Improving on a business’ local SEO is not the most enticing task, but it is a rewarding effort one can take. It is a low-hanging fruit that business owners and marketers should concentrate on to reap benefits.
Every busy entrepreneur or stressed marketer is constantly trying to improve the traffic to their business website. While trying to do so, one must start off by rectifying the on-page elements. Que in, title tags!
What are title tags?
As the name suggests, title tags are part of the website’s html code that indicate to search engines and web crawlers what the title of the page is.
This is what they look like in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP):
The title tag here is – “Find Dentists in San Francisco & Book Online Instantly! – ZocDoc”. It tells the audience what to expect when they click on the link. Think of title tags as appropriate chapter headings in a book. When your audience searches for something relevant on the internet, you want them to land up on your business website.
How to frame the ideal title tags?
Title tags are meant to be short and simple but at the same time, should serve multiple purposes. This means that your title tags have to:
- Be relevant to the content on the page
- Sound interesting to the audience and push them to click on it
- Be simple enough for the search crawlers to understand it
I know what you’re thinking – how can one make something sound enticing to the audience and at the same time make it search-engine friendly? Well, that’s SEO for you.
Optimizing title tags on any website is a simple fix. Experts have said that title tags are the second most important on-page element for SEO, after the content, of course. They are one of those elements that require minute fixes but yield heavy results.
Points to keep in mind while optimizing title tags
Creating search engine – friendly title tags should be your aim. But as stated earlier, the verbatim used should be attractive for users as well.
Let’s spell it out for you with some good practices:
- Keep the title tags unique. Having the same title tags for multiple pages might confuse the search crawlers and result in black-listing of your page(s)
- Title tags don’t have to be the same as the heading of your content piece or the page. Your title tags can be short and concise, while the page headings can be slightly longer and descriptive.
- Google generally truncates title tags that are longer than 60 characters. So keep in mind not to exceed the limit if you want your audience to get a clear picture.
- Include keywords (or synonyms) in your title tags to improve chances of getting ranked.
- Try keeping the major keywords close in the title tag. Don’t compromise on the readability of the tag.
- Make it a habit to include the location (name of the area or city) that you are looking to rank for in your title tags.
- If you have any special offers/discounts/benefits, make sure you include them in your title tags as well. This generally works well for offer-specific landing pages.
- You can look at installing the Yoast SEO Plugin if you use WordPress for your website. It can help you picture your title tags clearly and also gives you a preview of what your snippets would look like.
What are the advantages of optimizing title tags?
Firstly, modifying or improving on your title tags will definitely help improve your local SEO. Your site or landing page will help rank higher for relevant keywords and will improve the traffic of prospective customers you see on your page.
Imagine a scenario where a user has multiple tabs open on their system. If they want to navigate back to your site, the content of your title tag is what is going to be visible on the browser tabs. If the text is relevant and simple, the user will get to it right away, easing their experience.
Title also prove to be useful when your content piece or page is shared on social media platforms. The text that comes up as the heading on the thumbnail is picked up from your title tag.
In conclusion, creating and optimizing title tags for your website might seem like a tiresome task, but once you start working on it, you will realize that it’s a pretty straightforward. Try not overthinking the task and get started with it right away!