How to Write the Perfect Title Tag

Transcript:

Okay. We are going to review how to write the perfect title tag. So to write a great title tag, the first thing that we need to do is we need to do some good keyword research. Um, I definitely recommend using Google’s keyword planner because, uh, it has the best, most accurate information, and really that is where all keyword tools get their data from. So we’re going to use Google’s keyword planner to do a little research. Um, we’re gonna use an example, uh, say a pediatric dentist. So type in pediatric dentist, um, kid’s dentist, children’s dentist. So it really, the first thing we want to do is find out which keywords are going to have the most value for us as we write our title tag. Um, so when we’re looking at this data, we can clearly see that pediatric dentist has the highest search volume and also has, um, one of the highest, uh, bid ranges for the top of the page bid.

So it’s gonna be probably one of the most valuable terms we can actually sort, um, by search volume if we’d like to, to see which keywords received the most search volume. We can look down in the ideas. So definitely pediatric dentist is the highest searched, uh, kid’s dentist, uh, dentistry for children is up there. And then there are some other terms down here. So really what we’re looking for is keywords with a high search volume and keywords that have a lot of value as indicated by the bid data. So really the first place to write a good title tag you have to start is you have to do really good keyword research. Once you’ve gathered all the best keywords and variations, then we can pop over and, and begin writing our title tag. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to actually, we’re going to review the first element first.

Um, when writing a tassel, really the first element writing a good title tag is um, maximizing the character or pixel length of each title. So really what this means is you have between 55 and 70 characters in your title and you want to use as much of that space as possible. So, um, I’m going to be writing my title tag in the Yoast SEO plugin so we can see a preview of what it might look like. And the reason why I like this tool is because it tells you when your character, your pixel length is too long. So we can get an idea of approximately how many characters we can put into our title. Um, it’s important to note that a title tag doesn’t necessarily go by character length. It goes by pixel length. Um, and obviously an I or L takes up fewer pixels than a w, which is much wider. So you would be able to add less W’s into a title tag than you would I’s or ELLs simply because of that pixel length. So, um, once we’ve done a really good keyword research, we’re going to focus on making sure that our title tag isn’t too short. So if I want to say a pediatric dentist,

this would be too short of a title tag. In fact, um, Yoast SEO plugin gives us an orange bar saying, Hey, you’re not, you’re not using enough space. You need to, you need to use more space. So we are going to try to make our title tag as long as possible without getting truncated. Um, that’s really the key is to make sure that we can maximize it without truncation. Um, the next element, we’ll come back to this here in a second. So the next element that we’re looking at is to avoid redundancy. So we don’t, in our, in our title tag, we don’t want to put in a pipe bar and then say, uh, you know, kids, dentist,

that’s redundant. We’ve used the word dentist twice already, right? Um, we want to avoid that to the maximum that we can by choosing synonyms, um, for our keywords. So rather than saying pediatric dentists, kids, dentists, we might say something like pediatric dentist, kids dentistry. Um, so that way we’re using a synonym for pediatric, the word kids and we’re using something synonymous with dentists, which is dentistry. So we’re not using quite the same keywords. I might even put something like this kid’s dental care would also be another way of writing that we’re still kind of short here. But again, the key here is to avoid re redundancy uses many variations as possible in your title. The next element for a perfect title tag is we want to capitalize the first letter of each word. Um, I’m already kind of doing that here. Out of habit.

Um, you can see that we capitalize the first letter of each word. Unlike a description tag where you want to make it full sentences, use periods and punctuation, proper grammar, the title tag is much shorter. As you can see up here. Here is our, um, preview of what it would look like in Google. Um, you want to capitalize the letter of each word. So that’s the, um, that’s the third important part of writing a title. The next is to put your most important keyword first. So as we did our keyword research, we found the word pediatric dentist is the most frequently used and has the highest value. So that’s the keyword that we were going to put at the beginning of our title tag. There were other keywords like kids’ dentist or children’s dentist that had pretty good search volumes but not quite as much as pediatric dentists.

So always take your most important keyword and put it at the front of your title tag. So the next element that we want to look at in writing, a perfect title is using pipe bars and the ampersand versus the word. And, and that really is to save on pixel or character space. I’m using a pipe bars, a way to kind of separate or break up your title tag, put more keywords in there while still making it look clean. Um, so definitely the most frequently used, um, separator by SEOs is a pipe bar. Um, dashes work okay as well, but dashes take up more pixel space. So, uh, pipe bar is actually the most recommended in terms of, um, using the least pixel space. But also in terms of still making your title tag look smooth and clean. Um, so that’s, that’s definitely what you want to do next.

Um, you can add a city modifier to, to localize, um, your results. Um, Google is really good at identifying local search queries and who’s where. And so it’s not always necessary to add a city modifier to your title tag, but in some cases you might want to. So you could, we could say something like, we are a Denver pediatric dentist. Now again, you don’t want to be redundant. So if you do add a city modifier, um, you would only want to do it once. It’s also a best practice to only add one city for a single title tag. You don’t want to say Denver Aurora, Littleton and add multiple cities to a single tile tag. You would have to create a separate page. So, um, if you, if you have enough space to add in the, um, city modifier, you can do that. In some cases it’s a good idea and in some cases you are, um, it’s not necessary to add the city modifier cause Google absolutely knows where you’re located at.

In this case, I’m actually gonna take it out to save some space, but uh, that is, it might be important to add for various pages, but again, only add it one time and only one city. Um, the next, the next thing we want to look at is, um, using as many synonyms and variations as possible to um, output as many combinations as possible. As you can see, we’re actually kind of having an example here. The more, um, variations of a keyword we use, the more possible broad combinations that that page could rank for. So we’re going to go back here and continue kind of writing our, our title tags. So we have pediatric dentists, kids, dentist or kids dental care and children’s dentistry. So now my pipe, my green, uh, my indicator has turned green. So that means that I have used a good amount of space.

It’s not too short, not too long. If I went too long, you would see it go like this, right? That’s, that’s too long. But again, we do want to, you maximize the amount of space that we’re using. So I am going to go ahead and put in a city indicator. I’ll say at the front of my title tag and I’m going to say we are a, uh, we are a Denver pediatric dentist. Um, we do kids’ dental care and children’s dentistry. So this would be a title tag that is maximized. We’re using as much S, uh, Pixar characters space as we can without getting truncated. Um, we are not being redundant. We’re putting our most important keywords first. We have a lot of combinations. If we look at this page here, you’d see that these are the approximate number of combinations that that title tag outputs.

If we keep, if we clump all the keywords together, we could rank for pediatric dentists, we could rank for Denver pediatric dentists, we could rank for kids’ dentistry, um, children’s dentistry, um, and a lot of variations in either exact or broad match form. Um, so that’s, uh, those are the most important things. When, when writing a title tag, we quickly reviewed them one more time. First, do good keyword research. Find keywords that really match the page, but that are also high search volume and high value. Once you have done really good keyword research, then the next step is to maximize the amount of character or pixel space that you have without being truncated. So don’t go too small, not too, not too long. Avoid using redundancy. Don’t use the same keyword twice. Find a synonym. Find a variation so you can be better at describing what the page is about without using redundancy.

Um, capitalize the first letter of each word to make it pop more prominent on the Google search engine results page. Um, put your most important keywords first. Use pipe bars or um, um, or ampersands instead of, and to do, um, spacing and separating of your keywords and phrases. Um, add a city modifier if necessary to indicate what area or city you are wanting to target, um, and use synonyms and variations to maximize phrase combination, output. Um, and then obviously you need to create unique titles for each page on your website. So it’s a little bit of a process. But, um, title tags are absolutely one of the most important SEO elements that you do. So writing a perfect title tag is something you want to, or a skill that you really want to develop. I really like this tool, again, this Yoast SEO tool because it gives us a preview of what it would look like on a desktop and a preview of what it might look like on a mobile device.

And one of another reason why, well, there’s two really reasons why the title tag is so important. One, it’s pulled into the search engine results page. So it is the main and biggest element that customers see is your page title. So not only does it have the visual appeal and the conversion element to it, but it also is the, um, thing that describes your page. And so you need to write it in a way that it’s conversion-friendly, but also write it in a way that where it’s keyword-rich makes and makes sense in describing the page, but also gives you the most reach and, uh, um, ability to capture as many possible keyword combinations from a single title. Um, so definitely, um, perfecting your ability to write great title tags for your web page or your entire website is critical and you need to write unique titles for every single page that you have. So that’s it. Thank you very much.