What is an SEO Title?
Search engine optimization (SEO) requires a website’s title tag as a central element, serving as a succinct yet clickable headline on search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO titles help search engines understand both its content and relevance to a user’s search query, ultimately impacting how well that page ranks in results pages for that query.
SEO titles appear both in browser tabs and when shared via social media – an essential element of any digital marketing strategy.
Writing an outstanding SEO title is no small task and requires extensive knowledge of best practices and proven headline formulas, in addition to meeting any restrictions such as character limits displayed in SERPs or length requirements for other elements like og:title. Marketers often struggle with crafting the ideal title for their website due to these considerations.
An SEO title is text used to communicate a webpage’s content both search engines and users. It serves as an HTML element which informs other title-like elements in its head> section, such as og:title which appears on search engine results pages.
When crafting an SEO title, it is critical to find a balance between branding and keywords. While including brand names in an SEO title can increase brand recognition and visibility, too many keywords in an SEO title is considered “keyword stuffing,” and can negatively affect search performance.
Searchers use search engine results pages as they navigate their way through a list of results to locate what they need for their query. What determines their choice among the available pages? Typically it comes down to content relevance; when choosing among results they typically prefer those with engaging SEO titles that entice viewers into clicking through and reading articles or visiting sites that stand out from competition.
An effective SEO title should be short, descriptive, and include your target keyword or phrase. Furthermore, it should convey an air of authority and credibility which may help inform searcher decision making.
Though Google does not stipulate a character limit for SEO titles, it is advised they be no more than 60 characters to avoid getting cut off in search engine results pages and reduce clickthrough rates. A longer title could also cause all results on that search result page to become cut-off altogether and decrease clickthrough rates significantly.
An SEO title must be truthful and accurate to ensure searchers receive what they expect from the page, without deceiving or misleading keywords that can have an adverse impact on search engine performance and cause reader dissatisfaction. A title such as “Best Cheesecake Recipe,” which attracts 228k searches monthly according to Ahrefs, might attract many searches but fail to capture search intent properly due to offering little insight into its content – an alternative title would be “Easy Cheesecake Recipe.”