I can’t remember the first time I got used to searching Google for my daily needs. But one thing I remember is paying attention to the headlines or titles (as we call them) earlier to see if the web pages that were displayed matched what I was looking for, and I’m sure that we all do.
This is one of the main reasons for updating Google’s page titles as the search engine works hard to come up with the best titles and toss them on the SERP pages to connect searches with businesses.
The new page title update from Google replaces less than 20% of the title text on the search engine results pages (SERP) with text that Google considers relevant to the search query.
What are title tags?
If you’re not sure what title tags are, these are the blue headlines you see before you click a link on a search engine results page.
These title tags are critical to SEO, and a poorly optimized title will reduce the number of clicks resulting in less traffic to your website.
What is Google’s Page Title Update?
In SERPs, Google replaces the page title when it finds that it has not been adequately described. Previously, website developers set these headlines to make sure they accurately reflected the brand and page content.
However, this update allows Google to completely ignore page title tags if it believes they are incorrectly rendering the pages’ content. When creating the revised title, the main heading (H1), the other headings of the page, the text in the main part and other internal link texts are taken into account.
Updating the page title has caused significant problems for some websites, and Google has also been reported to remove the appropriate city or state from the title tags of local pages in some cases. This has left some users looking for nearby services to be confused.
Fortunately, Google has confirmed that 80 percent of the assigned HTML tags are used. So if you tweak the titles with the end user in mind, they’ll appear exactly as they are. However, here are some factors that Google will ignore and rewrite your title tags:
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If the title tags are too long (more than 65 characters)
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When keyword stuffing occurs
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If it doesn’t accurately reflect the content of the page
What should you do to keep your title tag?
We all know that title tags are important to a website and SEO, but header 1 tags are even more important as they are the first pieces of content that users and search engines see. You should keep an eye on your click-through rate (CTR) in Search Console to see if it has gone down. Keep the following points in mind when creating your title tags.
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Focus on creating high quality page titles that accurately reflect the page content and use keywords effectively.
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Headers are now even more important and can be used to determine the title of your page. Therefore, Header 1 or the main heading of your page should not be overlooked and it should be of high quality and summarize the page content. It should be written with the end user in mind, not the search engine.
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If possible, try to answer the searcher’s query in the first paragraph of articles and blogs.
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Include the city name in the page title, header, and local page content. This means that if possible, you should include a description of the location and other nearby areas and attractions.
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The Page Title Update was difficult for Google, unlike previous algorithm updates. It is very likely that an update will be released soon to fix the known bugs.
When it comes to core search updates, the best thing to do is keep an eye on your website’s traffic and rewrite your page titles whenever you see a significant change in clicks or CTR. Join Digital Ready today if you want to learn more about SEO and the SERPs.
