Writing strong meta titles is crucial to effective SEO practices and ranking in organic search because search engines analyze these titles to navigate the topic of your page and rank it accordingly. Try thinking of meta titles as the cards in a library card catalog; a search engine is the organized index of information, and the meta titles are methodically arranged cards within that index.
The Balance Small Business has some tips for meta title best practices and what to avoid.
Best practices:
- Stick to a 55-character limit
- Be specific but concise
- Make the keyword/keyphrase obvious
- Incorporate relevant power words
- Make it interesting
This is a great example from the CoSchedule blog because it stays within the Google character limit, makes good use of the keyphrase (i.e. “Blog Post Ideas”), and contains some compelling power words, like “Creative” and “Delight”.
What to avoid:
- Not creating a page title
- Making your meta titles too short and vague
- Exceeding 60 characters
- Keyword stuffing
- Not connecting your title to the main content
