How To Write SEO Friendly Title Tag ! Best Practices

In this post, I will share how to write the perfect SEO friendly title tag for your blog post. Title tags are one of the important components of SEO optimization. They always have been, and as far as we can tell, they always will be.

Here are some best practices, you can follow to craft SEO friendly title tag.

 

In a SERP (search engine result page) result page, the blog postโ€™s title is what catches the attention of a visitor. Your blog post title is the title tag for that particular page.

To rank well in the SERPs, you need to optimize your page titles for search engines. SEO title optimization is an important factor that search engines use to determine whether or not your page is relevant to a search query.

In short, if you want to boost your rankings, and come up in the first 10 results, you need to pay attention to SEO title optimization.

Additionally along with meta descriptions and on-page optimization, one of the most important on-page ranking factors you have control over is the title tag. So spend sometime before you pen down the title.

What is a SEO friendly Title Tag?

On the search engine results page (SERP), the title ( your post title) is the main part of a siteโ€™s listing. Which you see as a clickable headline in the SERPs result, bolded and in blue color.

This actually a title tag that you write as an HTML code for your webpage. In the HTML code, they will appear in the <head> section between <title> and </title> tags.

 

If you are on WordPress and have an SEO plugin installed, you can skip the HTML and add the title tag to your page by filling in the field thatโ€™s labeled โ€œ SEO titleโ€ or โ€œTitle tagโ€ in your plugin displayed at the end of WordPress editor page.

 

SEO friendly title optimization can help you boost your chances of ranking well in the search engine result page.

Title tags are also the first thing that your audience sees once they enter a search query.

Why Title Tags Matter?

Google or for that matter any search engineโ€™s goal is to deliver up results that are relevant to the searches people make.

The title tag is one part of the page thatโ€™s been given a lot of weight by search engine algorithms in determining what a page is all about. A title tag is a short and simple way for website creators to indicate whatโ€™s on the page that follows.

MOZ.COM explains “Title tags are the second most important on-page factor for SEO, after content.”

How to Optimize Your Titles for Search Engines

Writing SEO friendly title isnโ€™t hard if you know what works and what doesnโ€™t. Letโ€™s take a look at some of the best practices for SEO title optimization.

1. Write unique titles for every page/ blog post

As a blogger or a content writer, you know that every page on your website is unique and your title tags should reflect that.

Make sure you customize the title tags on each page of your website so that they accurately describe whatโ€™s on that specific page.

You want to frame the title tag words in such a way that the search engine bots know what the content of that individual page is about.

Additionally having a clear and accurate title is more useful to anyone who is searching for that particular topic or problem.

For userโ€™s title tag helps to identify the web sites that are likely to contain the information they are searching for within the list of web sites on a SERP

2. Get the Length Right for the Title

Please remember the title tag should not be long, generally, search engines display only the first 50-60 characters of a pageโ€™s title in their search results. For this reason, the length of your title plays an important role in SEO title optimization.

You should aim to write title tags that are about 50 characters long or at the most 60 characters. Try to fit in the most important keywords at the beginning of the title tag.

Anything longer than that search engines will chop off, in other words, won’t be displayed in the SERP result.

So, to be safe, place the most important or descriptive words of the keyword toward the beginning so theyโ€™re less likely to get cut off.

If you are pressed for space while writing a title, avoid using CAPS as it limits the number of characters that search engines can display.

3. Use your target keyword Find a primary keyword to target

First, find out the most relevant keyword(s) for your brand and niche. Your website will be more useful to those people if it shows up in the search for the right term. So for each page, you should have a target keyword (or a few) in mind.

The best way to include keywords for SEO title optimization is to add them at the beginning of your title.

Search engines do not encourage webmasters to stuff their titles with keywords. Google and other search engines may consider such pages as spammy. It creates a bad user experience so search engines do not see it as a positive strategy.

Title tags give you an opportunity to include the main keyword or keywords youโ€™re targeting for that page. This makes it clear to Google that this page is relevant for anyone searching for that specific term.

4. Focus on the descriptiveness of whatโ€™s on the page.

Remember search engines are getting smarter. Your post title should accurately describe what the page/post is about and set reader expectations. Try to keep the title tag short as mentioned earlier.

Your finished title tag should not exceed 50โ€“60 characters. You want your title tag to provide an accurate description of what people will see when they choose to visit the web page.

5. Avoiding Stop Words in Your Title Tags

Did you know what are STOP words? Did you know what are the words that Search Engine ignore? The common words that you should always avoid using in your Title tag.

Do not use stop words. Stop words are words that are ignored by search engines and (sometimes) users. Try to avoid using commas, whilst commas may look good for the user to scan the content of your page title, using too many may cause search engines to penalize you since they interpret it as keyword stuffing.

Yes, the Search Engine skips common words that are called stop words. to speed up the crawling/indexing process.A stop word can be any of the following (example)

A
And
But
So
On
Or
The
Was
With

Sometimes you might find it difficult to have a title tag without stop words, but if you try different combinations of the same title, you can find them.

you can find a full list of stop words in this link: https://jacobstoops.com/blog/seo-stop-words/

Conclusion

Those were the best practices to follow to create an SEO friendly title tags.

Surprisingly many bloggers and content writers, overlook title tags when you have bigger things to worry as part of your SEO strategy.

But ignoring SEO title optimization can cost you a lot. Your pageโ€™s title plays a crucial role in determining how well it will rank in the SERPs.

Website speed is another factor to improve in SERP ranking, you may want to read our 10 definitive ways to speed up a WordPress site in a few minutes.

Thankfully, writing effective page titles doesnโ€™t require much time or effort. But it can give you big results in terms of improving your search rankings.

Title tags are a short and therefore deceptively simple part of SEO. Just because they are short and donโ€™t require writing much, donโ€™t assume theyโ€™re something you should treat as quick and easy.

Take some time to really think about the best keywords to use to signal search engines what the page is about and to communicate to potential visitors whatโ€™s valuable on the page.

Your title tag has to do both at once. If you get it right, it can improve your rankings and increase your click-through rates.