Page Titles and SEO – What to Avoid

Page titles can be one of the most important parts of search engine optimization for your website and for individual pages. Writing proper page titles that please search engine spiders and human searchers alike isn’t that difficult, but there are certain things you need to avoid. Here’s a quick list:

• Avoid going over the 70 character limit. Normally, your page title should be between 60 and 70 characters. If it’s longer than this, the page title will get cut off in the search engine results page. Even though spiders will still see the title, real viewers won’t get to see the entire title. It’s not hard to keep most titles under 70 characters.
• Avoid leaving your main keyword out of your title. Every SEO page you write should be centered on one main keyword, with possibly a few secondary keywords added in for good measure. Your main keyword definitely needs to appear in your title, though, since it’s the search engine spiders’ and the human searchers’ first indication of what the page is actually about.
• Avoid burying your keyword late in the title. On the same note, it’s a good idea to have your keyword in the first few characters of the title. This makes it more visible, and it makes the topic of your page easier to understand. When human visitors are scanning a list on the search engine results page, they’ll be more likely to click on your page if they see the keyword they’re looking for right near the beginning of the page title.
• Avoid over-stuffing your titles with extra keywords. Have you ever seen page titles or listing titles on sites like Craigslist that just repeat different forms of the same keyword? It’s a little annoying, and it doesn’t give you a good indication of what the page or listing is actually about most of the time. It’s okay to try to work a secondary or related keyword into your title, but just like you shouldn’t keyword stuff your actual pages, you shouldn’t keyword-stuff your titles, either.
• Avoid vague or cute titles that don’t tell what the page is actually about. Again, your title should tell both the search engine spider and your actual human visitors what the page is actually about. There’s nothing more likely to turn a visitor off to your entire site than clicking on a page title from a search engine results page only to find out that the title doesn’t come close to matching up with the actual content of the page!
• Avoid repeated titles on your webpage. Each page should have a unique title, since similar or repeat titles – even if you have pages on the same keyword – can leave the spiders and the visitors confused. People and spiders need to be able to navigate your page easily and without confusion, so distinct titles are important.
• Avoid using titles that don’t match up to the tone of your website. If you have a fun, catchy website, then write fun, catchy titles for your pages. (Just make sure they still describe the content of the actual page!) On the other hand, if you have more of a dry, informative style, then make sure your title indicates that. Titles that give visitors and idea not only of topic but also of tone are very strong, indeed.

As you can see, there are lots of things to avoid when creating good SEO titles. However, once you get the hang of it, it will start to come naturally. Punctuation like dashes and colons can be really helpful, here. You can always craft interesting titles by using a Keyword: Catchy Phrase/Explanation type formula that will meet all the requirements for a good title!

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