Optimizing the title meta tag is the first thing that all SEOs pay attention to. Competent construction of the title tag, without errors, affects both the position of search results and the conversion site. With the help of meta-tags, the search engine gets to know the resource and analyzes the site to form a rating.
How the title meta tag affects page ranking
The title is the title of the page that appears in search results.
The title tag creates a snippet that shows users and search engines a title that reflects the queries and keywords the page contains.
The Title meta tag is one of the ranking factors by which the search engine determines the most relevant page, depending on the user’s request, and sets the position in the output.
SEO errors of the title meta tag
According to the On-Page roseville seo methodology, optimization will significantly increase the page’s ranking in search results, and the title tag, by priority, is optimized first. But there are many nuances here, the violation of which will lead to errors and affect the ranking of the page.
1. Lack of a tag
If the title is not specified, the search engine generates it automatically based on relevant fragments of the page text. Of course, the result will not be a succinct, clickable title, and the informativeness of such a snippet will reduce the position of the page in the output and the conversion of the site, respectively.
2. Title duplicates description
The title and description tags have different purposes. When the title tells about the name of the page, or description – why go to it.
From this it is clear that the text of the title and description should be different, and the repetition is an error that shows that the page is not optimized enough and this can affect the position in the rendering.
Duplicating the title and description can still be seen as an attempt to increase the importance of keywords, which is also a mistake that can affect rankings.
3. Too long title
Don’t include all keywords or important information in the title. If the title is too long, it will not fit into the snippet, and the search engine will automatically truncate it.
Google will still be able to parse the clipped title, but if there was important information in the clipped part, users won’t see it. This can affect CTR and conversion in general.
Keep your headlines concise and stick to the recommended size of 60-70 characters.
4. Short title
Usually, short titles do not inform users much about the content of the page. From the search engine’s point of view, pages with the optimal title length rank higher than those with a short one. Analyzing the snippet, Google may not understand the essence of your page if the title consists of three words.
Even though according to the recommendations, the length of the title should be at least 10 characters, this is not enough for keyword evaluation. It is best to stick to the optimal length (60-70 characters).
5. Non-unique title
Each page of the resource must have a unique title meta tag, otherwise the search engine may not understand which page is more relevant to the query. Multiple pages with the same title is a serious error that causes only one of the pages to be indexed.
A duplicate title for several pages is an indicator of poor internal optimization. If you have such a large number of pages on your site that the header names are automatically generated according to the template, then the probability of such an error is very high. Periodically check the site for duplicate titles.
The title must be unique not only on the service site, but also in search results. Plagiarism of other people’s headlines can also be a factor in lowering the ranking.
6. Irrelevance of page content
Google knows how to relate the relevance of page content to key queries. If the title does not correspond to the content, then such an error can lower the position in the issue.
From the user’s point of view, seeing information that does not correspond to the specified request contributes to leaving the site. This will be reflected in the analysis of user behavior and the number of conversions.
7. Outdated information
The title tag information must be true. If the title indicates a price, free service or similar characteristic, it is necessary to periodically check this data to avoid errors.
Of course, if you specify a specific advantage in the title, it will attract visitors and increase the CTR, but if the information from the title is wrong, then the ranking of such a site will drop significantly in search results.
8. Lack of keywords
By analyzing the snippet, the search engine evaluates the relevance of the query page, so it is very important to use keywords in the title and description. In addition, Google bolds the specified query words, which in itself attracts the attention of users and increases the CTR accordingly.
The absence of keywords in the title can lead to an error when the search engine, not finding a correlation between the text of the title and the text of the page, which will lower the position in the output.
9. Oversaturation of the title with keywords
If you add a lot of keywords to the title, the result will be a simple title. Such a mistake threatens to reduce the rating due to banal spam.
It is best to add no more than two high-frequency queries (HF queries) to the header. You also don’t need to specify the same keyword in different forms – Google knows how to recognize different forms of the word.
10. Unclear title
Headings must be informative, otherwise it is considered an error. Specify the main type of activity and enter the keyword in the title. If it is not clear from the title what content is on the page, then analyzing the page, the search engine will lower the position of the site.
Conclusions
Optimizing the title meta tag will not solve all errors, but it will already affect the ranking of the page. SEO errors in the title can affect the evaluation of the page by the search engine, as a result of which the ranking will sink and even quality content will not save the situation.
It is worth highlighting the most common SEO errors in the title:
- lack of title;
- repetition of the same text in the title and description;
- verbosity;
- brevity;
- non-uniqueness;
- irrelevant content;
- irrelevance;
- lack of keywords;
- oversaturation of keywords;
- indistinctness.
Google gets to know the page during title analysis, so you need to make an impression on the search engine already at this stage.
