Low-Hanging Fruit in SEO: Page Titles

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a large topic. But in its simplest form, it is the process of improving a website’s technical setup, and on-page and off-page content to appear more prominently in relevant searches. Oftentimes, however, the most impactful areas are easy to change. In this article, we will focus on the low-hanging fruit in SEO. I often view search engines as mega libraries. In a library, librarians are often tasked with categorizing books. When a librarian receives a new book, unless there is some reference point, they will need to categorize it themselves. Naturally, they will first look at the book's title, author, blurb, and, at some point, put it in a section of the library for people to find. Much like the process of librarians, search engines need to put a website in a place for people to find, and similarly, the clearer the title of the website, the easier it is to categorize. On a website, each page should have a title. There are quick ways to find the exact title, but here are a couple of non-technical methods: 1. On desktops, you most likely can see your page title by hovering over the browser tab with your cursor. 2. On mobile, you most likely can see your page title by tabbing out of the page to the tabs overview (best on landscape). If you can see the title, ask yourself: if you were the librarian, based on the title, would you know where to place this book? While there is no character limit for a page title (Google Search Central, Title Links), the consensus is 50-60 characters, ensuring your full title appears in search results without being cut off (W3 Schools, HTML <title> Tag). Thus, with the number of characters in mind, it’s important to take into consideration your target demographic. Are you a local business looking for local customers? Are you a global business looking for customers in your country? What is your main service? What is the main content of the page? Naturally, since you want to keep your title within a certain range, you want to be mindful of the keywords that you choose for the title. Another way you might be able to see your title is by searching for your website in a search engine (for the purposes of finding your true title, it’s best to search for your page without using your business name, as a search engine can just display your business name even though your title may be different). Generally, the search results should provide the website name, favicon, URL, page title, and description. This is a great opportunity to understand what your competitors are doing and how you can improve your titles. In the next blog post, we will cover how to know when the search engine has indexed your page and how to manually request indexing. References 1 Google Search Central. Title Links. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link 2 W3 Schools. HTML <title> Tag. https://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tag_title.asp