It can be difficult for small business owners to prioritise tasks and projects.
There is always so much to do and so little time. What tasks do you really need to do to optimise your website for search engines?
If you’ve only got very limited time to devote to SEO, then you might want to take a look at your title tags across your website.Â
I run an agency that specialises in small business SEO services and here is my guide to title tags and how to optimise them.
What is a title tag?
Every page on the www should have a title tag. It’s simply a line of code that sits in the head section of a webpage.
<head>
  <title>Keyword Target 1 | Keyword Target 2 | Your Brand Name</title>
</head>
Where can i see a title tag?
There are three main places you can spot a title tag.
- Search engine results pages. It’s the first, usually blue, clickable line of text you’ll see in any individual search result.
- Browsers. Most browser use tabs nowadays. Take a look at the tabs you have open. You can tell them apart by the favicon, or website icon, on the left and the text next to it. Yep, that’s the title tag.
- Sharing content via Social Media. Many social media sites will pick up the title tag when you share a webpage with your followers.
Why is a title tag important for SEO?
They’re a major factor in helping search engines understand what your website or webpage is about.
But I have a large website how do i go about optimising all my title tags?
Step 1: As mentioned above, get a piece of software that’ll run a spider on your site and display your urls alongside their title tags and other meta tags like h1s and meta descriptions.
Step 2: Gather all your existing rankings and landing pages in one spreadsheet.
Step 3: Sort spreadsheet alphabetically by url and by keyword volume to try and assess your most valuable keywords you’re ranking on at the moment for any given landing page.
Step 4: Now for the tricky bit. For all your pages you need to decide if you’re happy with the title tag as it is or whether you need to change it.Â
You’ll need to cross reference the spider of your website with your existing title tags with your current rankings.Â
Are you missing something obvious? Will changing the title tag better match the keyword you want to rank on and help you climb rankings?
Step 5: Change title tag or leave the same and record the date you made the change and the existing rankings in your original spider spreadsheet.
Step 6: Record new rankings after one month, two months and three months. Have they improved?
Step 7: Repeat the process.
Remember:
- Every page should have a unique title tag.
- Every page should have one or two primary keyword target in a title tag. If you find yourself trying to cram in more – then you should think about building a new page.
- Accurately describe what the page is about. It might sound obvious but it’s an often overlooked point. If your page is about the history of Manchester United football club then you won’t be able to rank on keywords related to the history of Liverpool football club.
- Don’t make them too long – under 60 characters. Google has a limit of 600 pixels.
- Don’t stuff them with keywords, write them for customers.
Should i put my keyword or brand name first?
This is a question I get asked very frequently.
To established businesses I always recommend adding your target keywords first and second and brand name last.Â
However, if you’re just starting out there is a case to be made for adding your brand name first – if you think this is likely to bring you more click throughs.
For instance, if you have a really recognisable brand name and are competing against very similar product suppliers in a saturated market then it would make sense to lead with your brand name first.
  <title>Your Brand Name | Keyword Target 1 | Keyword Target 2</title>Learn more about SEO at: https://improve-seo.co.uk/
