What is a Title Tag?

Have you ever wondered, what is a title tag, why it is important, what does a title tag look like, or how do I write a title tag? I'm going to bet you've asked one, if not all, of those questions. Let's dig into one of the most common elements we optimize when doing SEO on a website or blog.

What is a Title Tag?

A Title Tag is an element we add to every website page or blog post that we want to have found in Google. It's a maximum of 60 characters, including spaces.

Why is a Title Tag important?

A Title Tag serves two purposes. First, it helps your potential customer understand what your page or post is about and hopefully entices them to click on your page to learn more. Second, it helps the search engine understand what your page is about to rank you higher in the results when people search for terms related to your business.

What does a Title Tag look like?

Let's start with what does a Title Tag looks like to your potential customer. Here's an example of a Title Tag in Google.

Your Title Tag is directly below the URL for your website page or post  (in the example, SEO Expert Rachel Lindteigen | Etched Marketing Academy is the Title Tag) and is the first thing a potential customer sees when they see your result. Generally, people read the Title Tag and decide if it's worth clicking to learn more.

Here's what your Title Tag looks like on the back end of your website or blog.

Your admin panel may look slightly different, but you'll likely have a space to add Page Title or Title Tag. You'll want to add your optimized Title Tag in that area. If you're using WordPress, you'll add this in the Yoast SEO plug-in at the bottom of the page.

How do I write a Title Tag?

You'll want to write a Title Tag that encourages the potential customer to click-through to your website to learn more. Research shows that you can get up to a 30% increase in click-through rates when you use an action verb in your Title Tag. For example, learn, shop, find out, visit, etc. If you can incorporate an action term in your Title Tag, you may get more traffic than if you don't use one.

You'll want to use your most important keyword for your page in your Title Tag. Ideally, you want the keyword closer to the beginning of the tag so that people see it quickly when they're browsing through the results.

You should also include your business name in your Title Tag to know what website is sharing the information.

Your Title Tag is a maximum of one sentence. It's limited to 60 characters, including spaces, so you can't write a lot here.

There are several ways that you can write Title Tags.

1. Sentence form – Learn what a Title Tag is on the Etched Marketing Academy blog (62 characters, may truncate the end of Academy)
2. Keyword & pipes form – What is a Title Tag | Etched Marketing Academy (46 characters, will show fully)
3. Combo – Learn What a Title Tag is | Etched Marketing Academy Blog (58 characters, will show fully)

You can write your Title Tags in any of the three ways shown above. I try to use an action verb to help with my click-through rate. I also use the pipe | to help add white space in the Title Tag so that it's easier to read.

Have you optimized the Title Tags on your website yet? If not, it's a great place to start working on your SEO. They're a quick & easy way that you can update your website or blog and start helping you be found easier in the search results.

Get a copy of my SEO Quick Start Guide today, and it will walk you through what to do on your website for SEO. If you're not sure where to start with SEO, this is the guide for you. 

Bonus, sign up for my free SEO training class and get started today.