Title tags are an essential part of how Google will recognize and begin ranking your website content. Most people do not realize that this element of your website matters, but this information is what will be displayed across Google organic search.
How To Update Title Tags
The process of updating title tags on your website is generally quite easy, and I recommend it as one of the first steps for boosting organic SEO ranks.
WordPress Websites
When you create a WordPress page, the title of the page will automatically display across Google as the title tag. In some cases, this can be a huge missed opportunity for SEO.
In this screenshot below, you can see how the Home Page of the website was named “Home Page” in the backend. That means before we updated the title tag, it displayed as “Home page” across Google Search.
On WordPress, the Yoast SEO will help you update the title tags for your pages for display across search results. Here’s how you edit the title tags of your WordPress website through the Yoast plugin:
- Log in to WordPress backend
- Navigate to Page you want to optimize
- Scroll down to the Yoast plugin on the page
This screenshot shows what the Yoast SEO plugin looks like in the backend of your WordPress page. Yoast has many features to optimize the SEO for individual pages, and this article explains each feature.
Non-WordPress Websites
On non-WordPress websites, you will need to work with your developer to update title tags across your website.
You will need to be updating the H1 tags across your pages, as well as ensuring there is only 1 H1 tag page.
How We Boosted SEO Using Title Tags
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Analysis
As we were approached by this client for an SEO audit, we began looking at individual pages for technical errors that could be the reason their website isn’t ranking so well. When we do a website audit we look at:
- Title tags
- Heading tags
- Meta tags
- Page Speed
- User Experience
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Keyword Targeting
Before we can start making changes to the website, it’s important to take a step back and create an outline for how keywords should be added to your title tags.
- Create an excel spreadsheet with each page listed. There should be a column for the old title tag and a column for the new title tag.
- Spend time analyzing the keywords your currently is ranking for, as well as high intent keywords in your industry.
- Make sure you don’t assign the same keywords to multiple pages. Each page on your website should be targeting its own keyword or group of keywords.
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Implementation
This step may or may not require a developer, but the Yoast SEO Bulk Editor Tool is perfect for occasions like this. It allows you to go through and edit title tags for multiple pages at once.
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Results
The client was incredibly happy with the work we did on the SEO for their website and it came down to seeking out some problems that occurred when the website was moved onto WordPress from Joomla. We noticed that the title and meta tags were not transferred correctly and it ended up in a drop of organic keywords. In this screenshot, you can see how organic keywords dropped once Google realized the title tags were missing. Once we added the tags back in, we saw ranks go back to normal, and even increase by 75%.
Update Title Tags Across Your Website
We believe that optimizing title tags across your websites is one of the most effective methods for boosting your organic SEO. Creating a document to organize this work will also help you understand what pockets of keywords your pages are targeting. This is great for writing more content and working to target more keywords.
If you need help optimizing the title tags on your WordPress website, our team can help you by contacting us.
