How to write title tags for SEO

The ultimate guide.

After 20 years of writing title tags for SEO, we’ve compiled a guide that includes examples for various industries and explains the theory behind why they work.

Knowing how to write title tags for SEO is critical because title tags not only affect the relevance of your website, a significant ranking factor, but also improve its click-through rate and engagement. Engagement with your search result and your website is conjectured to be a significant ranking factor.

Index

• Conceptual knowledge
  • Conjecture
    • NavBoost
      
• General rules for title tags
  • Write title tags left to right
  • Title tag dilution
  • Exact match vs partial match
  • Title tag context
    • Context title tag example for a local mechanic
  • Use a separator between keywords
  • Too many commas in title tags
  • Watch out for hyphenated words
  • Sitenames in title tags
  • Title length – Clearing up confusion
    
• Title tag examples
  • 1 – National ecommerce example
  • 2 – Service provider example
    
• Advanced title tag optimisation

Conceptual Knowledge

To write effective title tags, you need to understand the following concepts.

Conjecture

This article contains conjectured concepts such as Navboost. It is our observation that these conjectured concepts are accurate or close to the secrets. Enjoy 🙂

NavBoost

This article refers to NavBoost, which is conjectured to monitor website engagement. Navboost is conjectured to measure the website’s click-through rate, as well as other engagement factors such as lastLongestClicks. NavBoost raises the website’s ranking as its click-through rate and on-page engagement improve. It is calculated on a long 13-month average. Beyond official documents from Google, industry observation and speculation suggest NavBoost may extend to many engagement factors beyond click-through rate. NavBoost or another unnamed Google Algorithm may be monitoring other signals, such as but not limited to –

• The session time
• page interactions,
• Click-through rate of the website
• How long does pogosticking take to occur, if it occurs?

A pogostick is when the user visits the website, returns to Google and clicks another search result. A negative ranking signal because, to Google, it means they didn’t find a satisfactory answer to their query on your website. Writing effective title tags starts by choosing keywords that your website is qualified to answer so as to minimise the Pogostick rate.

References

• https://seranking.com/blog/navboost/
• https://www.semrush.com/blog/navboost/
• https://searchengineland.com/navboost-user-trust-ux-445240

General Rules For Title Tags

Title tags should follow the following rules.

Write Title Tags Left to Right

The most crucial keyword goes on the left, and as you move to the right-hand side of the title tag, the weighting awarded by search engines decreases.

Example

<title>Car Hire Esperance - Vehicle Hire & Rental</title>

The highest relevance is awarded to “Car Hire Esperance”, the lowest relevance is awarded to “Rental”

Title Tag Dilution

The longer the title tag gets, the smaller the percentage of the title it devotes to any keyword. This will dilute the relevance.

Example with low density for “Car”

<title>Car Hire Sydney - Vehicle Hire & Rental </title>

The keyword density of “Car” is 16.6%

TIP: You can improve the keyword density in a longer title tag by repeating the primary keyword.

<title>Car Hire Sydney - Vehicle Hire & Car Rental</title>

The keyword density of “Car” has improved to 28.6%. We’ve also picked up an exact match for “Car Rental” which will help with the rankings for “Car Rental”.

Important – Do not repeat a keyword more than three times. Few, if any, websites on the front page of Google have four repeats of the keyword. There are many examples of three repeats. Commonly, two repeats are also used. How often you repeat the primary keyword depends partly on brand representation. Too many repeats look spammy, result in a lower click-through rate, and may not position the brand well. A brand-conscious organisation will use fewer repeats.

Footnotes for clarification

<title>PLA Fillament - PLA Fillament</title>

Repeating the keyword as above is pointless; it does not increase the keyword density of “PLA Fillament”. You would typically only repeat the keyword if you’re going to make the title tag longer. It’s typically done with the inclusion of variation, like so

<title>PLA Fillament - PLA Fillament For 3D Printers</title>

Exact match vs partial match

An exact match is better for rankings than a partial match, for example

<title>Plumbers New York - Plumbing Services & Contractors</title>

A search for “Plumbing Contractors” does not have an exact match in the title tag above. If “Plumbing Contractors” is the second-highest priority after “Plumbers New York”, the example would be better.

<title>Plumbers New York - Plumbing Contractors & Services</title>

However, now we’ve lost the exact match for “Plumbing Services”, and that could be fixed with the example below.

<title>Plumbers New York - Plumbing Contractors - Plumbing Services</title>

Title Tag Context

Context is critical. – The enemy of SEO progress is trying to rank for keywords without context. Ensure all keywords have context. Context targets less competitive terms and improves relevance for commercially oriented searches; it also increases NavBoost engagement by aligning the website’s rankings with searches more likely to engage with the content.

Consider these three keywords

Keywords	Context	Competition	Search Volume	Commercial Intent
Engineers	Lowest	Highest	Highest	Lowest
Vehicle Engineers	High	High	High	High
Vehicle Engineers London	Highest	Lowest	Lowest	Highest

For the highest contextually defined keywords, not only is competition the lowest and the commercial intent the highest, but you can more easily hold on to the traffic you receive for these highest contextually defined keywords. Holding on to the traffic is conjectured to be a positive NavBoost signal. With a positive NavBoost score, your rankings will not only improve on the targeted keyword, but Google will also later expand your circle of influence to broader keywords.

This is a critical concept to understand on a new website with limited domain authority and limited favourable NavBoost history. You should strategically select easier, contextually relevant keywords you can to get things started. Prove to Google that you hold on to this traffic, and if you have favourable NavBoost signals, Google will slowly boost the number of keywords and more competitive keywords that you can rank for.

TIP: Although “Vehicle Engineers” is more challenging to rank for than “Vehicle Engineers London”, your title tag can target both. The title example below has an exact match for “Vehicle Engineers” and “Vehicle Engineers London”

<title>Vehicle Engineers London - Automotive Engineers & Car Engineers</title>

Context Title Tag Example For A Local Mechanic

Do not do this

<title>car</title>

There is no context for the car.

This is better

<title>car mechanic</title>

The context is mechanical

Can it be better still?

The above has no geographic context, and breaking through to the front page of Google will be extremely unlikely unless the website is a subject-matter expert, has extremely high domain or page authority, and has a strong track record of NavBoost engagement.

This would be easier and faster

<title>car mechanic $cityname</title>

However, for a commodity like a mechanic, people are sensitive to distance, and Navboost engagement rates could be low when targeting the city name. Specifically, the bounce rate and pogostick rate would likely be high even if significant effort were invested in the content, because people are distance-sensitive. The high bounce and prostick rate could cause any ranking gains to fall away.

City names are also competitive terms, and if the domain is not yet a strong subject matter expert, with sufficient domain or page authority and a strong record for NavBoost engagement, it would be much faster to rank for

<title>car mechanic $suburbname <title>

This makes more sense for a title name, as most car mechanics would be based in a single location, and attracting qualified clicks will have the best engagement score, e.g., lowest bounce and pogostick rate.

Could this be better still?

The title tag above lacks additional context; the solution below would broaden the set of keywords for which the page ranks well.

<title>car mechanic $suburbname - Vehicle Machanics $surbname <title>

Final thoughts

Narrowing to a suburb has less traffic than narrowing to a city. To pick up on some additional searches, you may consider an aggregate strategy, creating an additional suburb page within the mechanic’s catchment area. Do not create a suburb outside the mechanic’s catchment area, as a high bounce rate would be a negative NavBoost signal and harm the site. Creating a suburb page strategy is a deep subject, and how to do this will be explained in another article. In short, you should not create a subpage strategy that has a high bounce rate, uses entirely duplicate content or uses largely AI-generated content. This would be dangerous.

Use a separator between keywords

Hypen between keywords

Hypens – are the most common way to separate major key phrases, but a vertical pipe | can also be used. There is probably no difference between the two; however, for what it’s worth, we’ve used hyphens for 20 years with great results.

Important – You should always use a hyphen or a pipe to separate the first key phrase in the title tag for which you most wish to obtain a raking for.

For example

<title>Most Important Key Phrase - Second Key Phrase and Contextual Variants</title>

Commas,

Can be used as a separator between contextual variants, but note that a string of commas separating contextual words is not as good as an exact match, for example

<title>Single Customer View Solutions - Australian SVC Software, Databases & Platform</title>

Would not rank as well for

“Australian SVC Databases” because the database keyword is by itself.

To achieve a better ranking for database searches, it is better to have the “database” keyword next to SVC

eg

<title>Single Customer View Solutions - Australian SVC Databases, Software & Platform</title>

Now, the ranking for Software would suffer because it is on its own. As highlighted above, this additional context may be broken down into multiple pages. Until this is done, this may be an interim title tag.

Too many commas in title tags

It’s not desirable to have lots of commas such as this

<title>SEO Perth - SEO Expert, Specialist, Consultant, Provider, Solutions</title>

Limit it to one comma and an ampersand

<title>SEO Perth - SEO Experts, Specialists & Solutions</title>

Watch out for hyphenated words

People do not typically search for keywords with a hyphen in them, for example

<title>metal-filled filament - Buy metal filament online in Australia</title>

change to

<title>metal filled filament - Buy metal-filled filament online in Australia</title>

Important – We’ve canvased both the non-hypened and hypened versions to maximise rankings for both searches.

Sitenames in title tags

We’re not a fan of adding the sitename to the page title except for the homepage. It’s not required and may dilute the title tag’s keywords, especially if done inconsistently. If sitenames are going to be added to the title tags it must be extremely consistent. Always end the title tag the same. Any failure to do so means Google may mistake the site name for a keyword, and this makes the title tag longer and dilutes the percentage of the title tag that’s dedicated to the keyword

If you insist on including a site name (which we don’t recommend) make sure you follow these rules

Do not do this

First page

<title>SEO Perth - SEO Experts, Specialists & Solutions | Scott Shorter</title>

Second page

<title>Google Ads Perth - Google Ads Experts, Specialists & Services - Scott Shorter</title>

In the example above, one page ends with a pipe and the other with a hyphen. They are not the same. Be consistent in how you separate the sitename.

Do not do this

Page one

<title>SEO Perth - SEO Services - SEO Experts & Specialists</title>

Page two

<title>Google Ads Perth - Google Ads Experts, Specialists & Services - Scott Shorter pty ltd</title>

In the example above, one page ends with Pty Ltd. They are not the same. Always keep the sitename the same.

Do this instead,

If you’re going to use the sitename in title tags, make sure 100% of pages end with the same sitename. I hope that’s clear 😊 for the avoidance of doubt, consider this example.

page one

<title>SEO Perth - SEO Services - SEO Experts & Specialists - Scott Shorter</title>

page two

<title>Google Ads Perth - Google Ads Experts, Specialists & Services - Scott Shorter</title>

Both end with – Scott Shorter, they are the same. Repeat this way for 100% of your pages. Not 90%, not 95%, consistency is the key to avoiding the site name hurting your SEO.

Title length – Clearing up confusion

What about feedback from SERP preview plugins such as YOAST, RANK MATH, and our SERP preview tool, which report that the title tag is too long? This is more of an aesthetic message than a hardline limit. Google will often trim the title tag to show the most relevant part. Keep in mind that the longer the title tag gets, the more diluted it becomes.

Title Tag Examples

1 – National Ecommerce Title Tag Example

Context example for an e-commerce website that sells nationally

Don’t do this

<title>PLA<title>

The context is missing.

Don’t do this

<title>PLA $cityname<title>

They sell nationwide, so including a city name might pigeonhole the website and limit its national ranking.

This is better

<title>PLA Filiment</title>

The context is filiment

Could it be better?

<title>PLA Filament - Buy PLA Filament Online</title>

It may be a while until they rank for “PLA Filament” due to competition. Adding contextual keywords after the hyphen may capture some easier keyword combinations with high contextual commercial intent.

Could it be better still?

<title>PLA Filament - Buy PLA Filament Online in Australia</title>

This will help rank for searches that include the term ‘Australia’. Many sites may have omitted this from their title tags. Helping to gain some initial rankings and start developing your track record with Google for NavBoost engagement.

2 – Service Provider National

Context example of a B2B website providing solutions nationally. As this product is niche and competition is low, it’s possible to rank without a multipage strategy targeting individual cities. Or the example below may be the parent page, and you could develop subsequent pages targeting cities.

Don’t do this

<title>Graph Databases<title>

There is no context

This is better

<title>Graph Database Consultants<title>

Consultants in the primary context and graph databases are the product/service

Could it be better?

<title>Graph Database Consultants - Graph Database Experts - Graph Database Specialists<title>

We’ve added some additional contexts.

Could this be better still?

<title>Graph Database Consultants - Graph Database Experts - Graph Database Specialists Australia<title>

Adding the context of Australia would improve the ranking of longer tail keywords like “Graph Database Consultants Australia”

Advanced Title Tag Optimisation

Tag lines in the title

Traditionally, title tags have been exclusively packed with keywords to increase relevance and diversify rankings. Advanced optimisation of your title tags means looking beyond keywords alone and writing title tags that may contain call-outs, which are not keywords, to improve the CTR further.

Adding a tagline instead of additional contextual variation is a strategy some businesses switch to after their website no longer needs to rely as heavily on the title tag for relevance.

See the part of the title in bold.

<title>SEO Perth - Results Driven SEO in Perth | Get The Top SEO Strategy </title>

In this example, the bolded keywords are taglines designed to improve CTR. Words in the title tag that aren’t keywords people are searching for are a missed opportunity, but they may still increase CTR.

Note that Google may trim your title tags

In this SERP example, Google has hidden “SEO PERTH”, which was the start of the title tag, because 90% of the top 10 websites start with “SEO PERTH” in their title tags. Google hides the bit that isn’t unique. Leaving room for the tagline to appear. You are still getting the benefit from placing that part first.

Why does this work?

The tagline in the instance above loses some contextual variants but may yield a higher click-through rate. Click-through rate is an engagement signal, and specifically, NavBoost measures it. A reminder that if you can hold traffic on your primary search term, Google will expand your circle of influence anyway.

So, in the example above, where the site is already the #1 result in Google, we have decided to sacrifice title tag relevance by dropping some contextual keywords in exchange for a better CTR.

How to use this strategy in e-commerce

With context

<title>Corflute Signs - Online Corflute Sign Printing In Australia

With a tag line to improve CTR for NavBoost optimisation

<title>Corflute Sings - Corflute Same Day Printing Free Shipping in Australia<title>

“same day” and “free shipping” are really taglines to improve CTR; they are not there to improve relevance.

This is an advanced optimisation that should be deployed carefully with monitoring for adverse effects. A traditional context-based approach (example 1) without a tagline is more straightforward.