Here are 17 most important steps which I learned during my research and experience. It will lead to increase your CTR and social sharing possibilities.
- Focus on the content first: It doesn’t matter how well you optimize your title tag if the page itself is low value. Getting the click is critical, but your page must satisfy intent and please your users. So as long as your content delivers on the promise of the title, then you’ll be good to go.
- Front load your primary keyword: If you approach crafting your title tags from a search or intent perspective, it will make sense to have the keyword phrase front and center. If someone searches for “best baseball cleats,” they’re likely to click on a result that showcases that keyword right away.
- Write for Searchers, not search engines: Yes, place your keyword in the title tag, but don’t stuff keywords in your title tag. Google’s algorithms are much more sophisticated than they used to be, and that means it can identify synonyms and variations of your keywords.
- Use shorter titles: Matthew Barbie’s research found that shorter titles tend to perform better in Google. Try to stay below 60 characters, including spaces.
- Avoid duplicating page titles: No two pages that you want to be indexed in Google should have the same title.
- Use title modifiers: So if you dig through my content on Gotch SEO, you’ll discover that I love using title modifiers because it’s one of the best ways to drive long-tail traffic without much effort.
- Emphasize freshness: Do you know anyone that prefers old content? I definitely don’t, and that’s why emphasizing freshness in your title works really well.
- Use the H and W strategy: So it’s simple, just use one of the following words in your title tag: how, what, why, when, where, or who.
- Use numbers: We’ve all been victims of consuming numbered listicles at one point or another, and that’s because they’re super effective.
- The secret title tag hack that copywriters hate: Oh yes, the classic clickbait headline. And I know I’ve fallen for many, and that’s because they work, mainly because they leave open loops in our mind and engage our natural human curiosity.
- Be the most comprehensive: Fear of missing out or FOMO applies in many different scenarios, but especially with knowledge gaps. People want assurance that they aren’t missing out on any important information.
- Emphasize speed or Time Savings: One of the most powerful benefits to emphasize is saving time.
- Break the pattern: Pattern interrupts are common in video content, but there are ways to break the patterns in the SERPs as well.
- Use ChatGPT to generate title variations: All you need to do is just put in a very simple prompt into GPT4 inside of ChatGPT.
- Score your SEO title ideas: Once it gives you the title tag ideas, all you need to do is follow it up with this prompt which is going to make ChatGPT give us grades based on the clickability and relevance to the main keyword that you entered.
- Launch a title tag test: Google Search Console shows you CTR data for your organic keywords. So just click on the performance tab, and you’ll have access to all kinds of useful data.
- Be realistic: All of these methods will help you optimize your title tags for peak SEO performance, but don’t forget placing your keyword in your title tag is a micro ranking factor. Think of it as a bare minimum for ranking well.
