Title Tags: Best Practices for Maximizing Click-Through Rates

The title of your page can make or break its performance in search engine results pages. It’s far from the only factor that influences the success of a page, but it’s the first text a user sees in SERP, so it’s crucial for prompting the initial interaction, the first click.

Title tags pose a unique challenge to marketers — you have to pack a lot of meaning into a very short text and convince users to click on it.

How do you do this effectively? Read on, and you’ll learn how successful SEO title tags look and how to create one.

Understanding Title Tags

Let’s get a better understanding of what a title tag is first. A title tag is an HTML code tag that can be found on almost every page. Here is how it looks in the Toolshero code.

You don’t have to write code, though, as all blogging tools and content management systems allow you to just put the title into the corresponding field and deal with that on their own.

Alongside the meta description tag, the title is displayed as the name of the page everywhere it can appear, from social media previews to SERP.

Its main purpose is to communicate to users and search engines what the page is about.

Title tags in SEO are important because they serve as one of the main indicators of page relevance to Google. That’s why optimizing title links is a part of the official Google guidelines on SEO.

Since the title is often the first piece of information that a user sees about your page, it should communicate two things effectively. What the page is about and why a user should visit it.

Optimizing website title tags, according to this case study, can increase click-through-rate anywhere from 37% to 640%.

What is the click-through rate? It’s the ratio of people who’ve seen the page to the people who’ve clicked on it. A high CTR means you’re getting more traffic to the page without ranking it higher.

Key Elements of SEO-Effective Title Tags

The first thing to control in a title tag is its length. If your title is too long, Google can cut it off in SERP.

50-60 symbols is how long a title tag should be if you want it to show fully in the SERP. You might add keywords after the 60 symbols — they might not be shown to the user, but the search engine will still register them. This is especially important for mobile optimization.

Keyword integration is also a large part of title optimization. Google will look for keywords or keyword variants in the title to determine what the page is about and choose the queries where this page will appear.

It’s not necessary to include all of the keywords or even exact keywords in the title, though. Just a variant of the keyword or a part of it would be enough.

For instance, for the keyword “how to merge companies,” you can use keyword variants like “company merger guide” or “how to merge two businesses.”

When writing the title and adding keywords to it, make sure the title clearly conveys what the page is about.

Continuing with this example, a title like “How to merge two businesses: company business guide” would be stuffed with keywords and not very clear to the audience. Go with something more concrete and descriptive like “Business merger guide for small companies.”

Google is against duplicate content, including duplicate title tags, not just the body of the page. If you’ve been using an automated title tag generator, you might have dozens of similar web page titles across your website.

Find and rewrite them. You can use an AI tool; just make sure the new titles you create are unique for each page.

To check whether your titles meet all the main optimization requirements, use a specialized SEO title checker. After checking, you’ll have recommendations on optimal title length for desktop and mobile with proper keyword placement and know how your title will look in SERP.

Suggestions for Maximizing CTR With the Help of Title Tags

Now that you have an understanding of what makes a title tag successful, here are the best tips on how to write a title tag.

Use Power Words

Title tags are incredibly short, so it’s important to pack as much meaning and nuance in as few words as possible. One of the best ways to do that is to use power words, words that can prompt an emotion or close associations in the user.

Here are a couple of feelings that certain words can evoke:

• Greed: free, sale, treasure, bargain, steal.
• Curiosity: secret, odd, confidential.
• Trust: licensed, secure, verified.
• Authority: trusted by, award-winning, ultimate.
• Novelty: learn, get a glimpse of, discover, find out.
• Convenience: in simple steps, in minutes, stress-free.

You can find lists of words like these and experiment with adding them to your titles to encourage clicking on them.

Highlight USP

A unique selling proposition, or USP, is what differentiates your page from the rest of the web. It doesn’t have to offer the ultimate answer for a problem or sell the best product in the world to be unique.

Brainstorm what makes your content or product different from a regular one. It may be that you’re basing your article on an expert interview, or new research, or that your approach is unique.

You can then add words that describe this feature: name-drop the expert, say that it’s data-backed, or that it’s a new technique.

Use Numbers

Posts that incorporate numbers into the SEO title typically do better in SERPs. This is likely because it creates an expectation in the user. They know how many items will be on the list and can assume the article will be well-structured and easier to understand.

Many sources show anecdotal evidence that using the number instead of spelling it might result in better CTR.

You don’t have to turn every post into a listicle, though. Just use the opportunity to mention a number if your post naturally revolves around listing a lot of items and explaining them.

Use Questions In the Title

Question is a powerful rhetorical device that can spark curiosity in Google users. Experiment with formulating the title tag as a question and see if the CTR will change.

Using the previous example, you can rewrite the title to “How can a small company handle a merger?”

Address User Intent

When a user sees SERP for their query, they’re met with dozens of options. Normally, they’d want to get an answer to their query fast, so they’re more likely to click on an SEO title that explains clearly what to expect.

For pages optimized for a very specific long-tail keyword, make sure to write a title that is precise rather than broad and communicates what’s inside.

You might be missing additional traffic, but generally, you want only the people who are interested in the content of your page to click on it. If they do and find out it’s not exactly what they were looking for, they’ll just go back to SERP.

Create FOMO

Cialdini highlights scarcity as one of the key persuasive techniques. It can also persuade the users to click on your page.

For product and services pages, you can use standard phrases like “Limited-Time Offer,” “Last Chance to Save,” or “Sale.” Just make sure there’s really a limited-time offer on the page, otherwise people won’t trust you.

For articles, you can try to create FOMO by implying users should take the information in the article into account before their competitors do.

Tap Into Current Events

This might not always be relevant, but if you can add current dates to your content, you should go ahead and do so. For instance, “2024 Merger Trends,” or “How to merge companies (relevant in 2024).”

For less formal content, you can try to tie in a trending cultural topic like “This marketing trick will make you more popular than Hawk Tuah girl.” Just make sure to avoid divisive topics like politics.

Use Seasonal Words

If your content is tied to a specific season, reflect that in the title of your article. An example of that for informational content would be “Merger updates of Fall 2024.”

How to write title tags with seasonal words for service and product pages? Typically it will be tied to a seasonal sale.

Use Local Keywords

The same goes for pages that have local content. The more precisely you describe the content on the page, the better it is for CTR. Following the example we use in this article, you could write a title like “How to merge companies in Rotterdam” and include location-specific content in it.

Speak Your Leads’ Language

One of the keys to effective communication is clarity, but using language can also function as an in-group marker. If you speak the language of your audience, you might earn their trust easily.

You can use regional words if your brand and content target a local demographic or professional jargon if you target an industry.

Experiment

Once your page starts ranking in the top 20 for the target keyword, you can experiment with the title. Try using one or several of the tips provided here and see how the CTR changes. Stick with the options that perform best and experiment more until you reach a CTR you’re satisfied with.

Summary

Title tags aren’t just something you have to optimize for search engines. It’s a communication tool that can help you promote your page on SERP and improve click-through rates.

Follow the tips from this article, and make sure you experiment with different title variations to reach optimal results.

Tagged: Digital Marketing