As you might already know, a steady stream of fresh text content can help your site to flourish in popularity. After all, without that content, whether it be blog posts, tutorials or even just new pages of your main sitemap, you might not be giving even loyal fans sufficient reason to keep revisiting!
This is where the right title is crucial. It can quickly capture a site visitor’s attention – especially when that title is prominent in Google, as it can become when you follow the tips below.
Keep track of changes in search ranking signals
With Google using hundreds of ranking signals to determine how listings should be ordered on its search pages, you shouldn’t lose sight of changes to Google’s search algorithm. Well, the major changes, anyway – one notable example of which, Google announced on 12 March.
While the precise nature of this particular alteration is not publicly known, speculation suggests that it pertains to how well each listing accounts for a particular search query.
Determine what titles your target customers are looking for
You can do this surprisingly easily, thanks to Google’s Keyword Planner tool. Using this tool, for which you can register free of charge, can help you to trace keywords and keyword combinations worth incorporating into your titles.
In the tool’s field headed “Discover new keywords”, you can type keywords you already know or even a competitor’s domain name, letting you see keywords that are driving traffic to this site. Those keywords will include “branded” ones; in other words, keywords including the competitor’s name.
Naturally, you won’t be using that same name, so should you just ignore the branded keywords? Not quite. You could find that simply replacing that company’s name with yours in these keywords can bring surprisingly impressive results for your SEO campaign.
Choose a title that accurately reflects the content
Audiences will garner particular expectations from your title, and it’s in your interest to make sure that those expectations are met. High-ranking titles in Google search results tend to be succinct while clearly articulating what the content is about.
If you are crafting a title for a web copy page, you could simply add a division – such as a vertical line, dash, bracket or colon – after your focus keyword, allowing you to then separately add the company’s name or the content category.
Don’t just roll the dice, be precise
How long should your title be? Naturally, you don’t want to test the patience of time-strapped readers by making that title too long. Indeed, it would be a prerequisite for a high search ranking that your title numbers fewer than 70 characters.
Certain pieces of content, like blog posts, are very sharable on social media. If you want to encourage social shares and likes, you should keep titles between 8 and 12 words long, research suggests.
If you’re still struggling with titles, rest assured that our SEO copywriters can find just the right ones for you – and write the rest of the copy, too.
