Search Engine Optimization 101: Title Tags on Web Pages



This title tag is your hook to put out there to get someone to find out more about what you have to say. This means a great deal of weight is put on that title tag by the various search engines. With that in mind, you always want to include relevant keywords that will help with getting traffic. They also help you to get indexed as fresh material with the various search engines. Update your title tag, submit it manually to Google Search Console using the URL Inspection Tool, and they’ll recrawl (and fully reindex) the page.

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What is a Good Title Tag?

A good title tag is one that perfectly describes the content on the web page where it appears. Search engines use a web page’s title tag in the actual search engine results listing, so it would describe what someone will find when they click on that search engine result. Sure, it should include keywords that appear on the web page, but it should entice the internet searcher to click through to the web page in order to find the information they’re looking for. For example, if they search for Red Widgets and the title tag has Red Widgets in it as a keyword, it’s a bad user experience if they click through from a search engine result and see that the web pages shows pictures of Blue Widgets.

Where does the Title Tag Appear?

The title tag generally appears in two different places: in the web browser, above the URL bar, and in the search engine results listings. Information on web pages’ main headings (such as the title of a blog post) can appear as the title tag, and it can also appear as the clickable heading on the main “blog” page that lists the blog posts on the website. In WordPress, for example, if the blog uses an SEO plugin, it’s possible to update and change/edit the title tag of web pages.

Does Changing Page Title Affect SEO?

Since the information that appears in the title tag and Page Title are search engine ranking factors, it’s possible that updating or changing the page title will have affect SEO. There are other search engine ranking factors that are taken into account, such as the content on a web page and links pointing to that page, so merely updating or changing a page title may not have an immediate affect or any affect on SEO.

How Long Should an SEO Title Be?

The SEO Title should be long enough to describe what’s included on the page. The search engines change the actual length of how much of the SEO Title is displayed in the search engine results listings, so the length can vary. The recommended length, however, is about 60 characters. Any text that appears in the SEO Title that’s longer than 60 or so characters can potentially be cut off when it’s displayed in the search engine results. That doesn’t mean that the search engines ignore the text, though.

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