For me, a perfect title tag in Google is;
- Highly relevant to the page
- The ‘crown’ of a keyword targeted article with keyword once
- Probably 5-12 words, but ideally under the 70 characters limit, so the full title appears in Google SERPS (search engine results pages) but it depends on the page content - character counter.
- A call to action which reflects exactly a searcher’s intent (ie to learn something, or buy something, or hire something. Remember this is your hook in search engines!
- The perfect title tag is unique in relation to other pages on the site
- I like to ensure my keywords feature as early as possible in a title tag
- For me, the company name goes at the end of the tag, and I use a variety of dividers as no one way performs best
- I like to think I write titles for search engines and human
- Know that Google tweaks everything regularly - why not what the perfect title keys off?
- Don’t obsess! Natural is better, and will only ‘get better’ as engines evolve
When you write a page title, you have a chance right at the beginning of the page to tell Google if this is a spammy site or a quality site - for example - have you repeated the keyword 4 times or only once? I think title tags, like everything else, should probably be as simple as possible too, with the keyword once and perhaps a related term if possible.
I think it’s fair to surmise Google might treat title tags (or title elements) on more authoritative domains differently than on new sites, too, that is, as with other things, more trusted domains might get away with more spammy titles, but from a user point of view and with searcher intent (and Google’s commitment to this) at the forefront, I’d try and keep things as simple and looking as human-generated and unique as possible.
Title Tag Best Practices
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