Most people start with a search engine. Use the same vocabulary as your audience so they can find your content. This starts with your page title, summary and first paragraph. Today we will look at titles.
Titles are some of the most important content on your website. They are landmarks that people use to navigate your page. Here are 5 tips to help you write awesome titles.
1. Use no more than 65 characters including spaces
Keep all titles to 65 characters or less (including spaces). This is because search engines truncate (cut off) titles in Google search results over that number.
2. Unique
Make sure your title is unique. It’s not helpful for people if search results show a list of pages with the exact same title.
3. Clear and descriptive
Titles should be clear and descriptive. The title should provide full context so that people can easily see if they’ve found what they’re looking for.
4. Front-load with the most important information
Front-load your titles. The most important information and the words the user is mostly likely to have searched should be at the beginning of the search result.
5. Be clever, but not too clever
Avoid puns or wordplay since these can make the content difficult to find.
6. Don’t CAPITALISE
Some screen readers read capitalised text letter-by-letter, but the main problem is that capital letters are harder to read (for everyone, but especially people with reading disabilities). It also gives the impression that you’re shouting at your audience.
If people can’t find your page, they won’t read your content. Spend a little extra time getting your titles right for a better click through rate.