You can SEO until you’re blue in the face, but if you don’t get your title right you might as well stay in bed. The title of your page determines everything – how well you rank, how many people get the chance to see your page, and how many people choose to actually click it. Nailing the title means everything, and it’s the best way to increase search engine rank.
There are two primary components to a page title: the first is for search engines and the second is for people. It’s important to understand that both elements are critical for success – it’s not enough to do just one or the other. Let’s start with the search engines.
Search engines have gotten a lot better at figuring out what your page is about. They can look at the words you use, where they fall, and how they’re arranged. They look at pages that link to you and what they have to say. But above all of that, they look at the title of your page. Like so many other things, it’s expected that the title gives a summary or at least an indication of what the page will be about. Make sure that you give the search engines what they want and state clearly in the title what you want to be found under. If you want searchers that type in “How to maximize mileage” to find your page, then make sure to title your page “How to maximize mileage”, not “Fuel efficiency”. They are related, but you need to target exactly the phrase you want to increase search engine rank for.
The second component of the title is at least as important, although not exactly SEO. Once your page is ranking on the front page, people will be seeing it often in the results. But are they interested in clicking on it? Think about it: there’s no point getting to the top of the listings if no one ever clicks through and visits your site. So the title has to include an element of interest. There needs to be something to make your page stand out from the rest of the results. There are plenty of ways to come up with engaging titles, from questions or fears to solutions and outrageous claims. If you’re going to increase search engine rank, don’t forget to do everything you can to take advantage of it.
To build your page title, take the first portion, the part that’s aimed at search engines, and combine it with the attention-grabbing, people-focused part. A dash often works well, but sometimes just turning them into a single sentence is the way to go. Whatever you choose, remember that you must target both the search engines and the people doing the searching to truly be valuable.