Just in case you're not sure, title tags are the blue, clickable links that appear in the search results.
They are not the same as your headings. They are defined in the HTML source code of your website.
Most website platforms allow you to edit them for SEO.
If you put your mouse over your browser's tab, the title tag will show up.
It breaks my heart when I see a title tag that just says "Home" because for small businesses, the home page is the most important page to optimize.
Here are 3 steps to optimize your title tags.
1. Include keywords.
Type the primary category of your GBP into a keyword research tool like Google's Keyword Planner, which will give you the most frequently searched terms related to your category.
I like to separate these terms into 2 categories: keywords and modifiers. For example:
Keywords:
🔸 plumber
🔸 plumbers
🔸 plumbing
🔸 plumbing company
Modifiers:
🔸 near me
🔸 emergency
🔸 best
2. Mention the locations you want to target.
Be specific. Start with your primary city and state, and then add any surrounding areas/neighborhoods you'd like to cover.
.@headley presented on localities at the 2020 @whitespark Local Search Summit.
Localities are basically neighborhoods/regions around your surrounding area. He found that adding 5 localities around the primary zipcode of a business resulted in ranking for 16% more keywords!
What about the brand name?
Unless you're a highly recognizable brand, I wouldn't recommend putting your business name in the title tag. Here's why...
Google loooves to rewrite title tags.
If you put your brand at the end of your title tag, Google will often move it to the front, and your important key phrases will be invisible in search.
Instead, mention your brand in the meta description.
Here's the controversial part: ✨ Do not worry about length ✨
Most SEO tools recommend 50-60 characters, but they are WRONG.
Keywords after the "..." still impact rankings, so why limit yourself?
The space after the "..." is the perfect place to hide all those localities.
3. Finally, edit the title tag to make it catchy and compelling.
While everyone else is keyword-dumping in their title tags, you can stand out and get more clicks by including words that inspire trust:
🔸 professional
🔸 same-day
🔸 expert
🔸 affordable
🔸 trusted
Here's my example 197-character title tag masterpiece 😅
Jim's Plumbing in Salem OR - Plumbers You Can Trust and Count On - Service in Dallas, Morningside, Hayesville, Four Corners, Chapman Corner, Oregon - Emergency plumbing company and repairs near me
What do you think? 😏
This title hits all the points:
✅ uses valuable keywords at the front
✅ includes primary locations & localities
✅ is catchy
❌ doesn't worry about length
❌ leaves out the brand name
Do you have any additional tips for great title tags?
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I found a business that was ranking very well for "Invisalign" in a wide radius (see map in previous tweet), even though their Google Business Profile was hot garbage.
🔸 No reviews
🔸 Wrong primary category
🔸 No additional categories
🔸 No services
🔸 No keywords in biz name
So what's the deal? How are they ranking so well?
The deal, folks, is their website.
Almost every page, title, header, and paragraph had to do with their primary target keyword: INVISALIGN
It's hard to measure the value of citations because:
🔸Citations take anywhere from 1 week to 1 year to get reviewed & go live
🔸Google can take 6-12 months to identify & index citations
🔸Other SEO work is done during this time, so it's hard to tell which gains come from where.
This is where some interesting research from @getuberall comes in.
They studied 6000 listings:
🔸3000 of them were only listed on the base directories (Google, Apple Maps, Facebook and Bing)
🔸the other 3000 were listed on an extended network of directories (up to 40 sites)
When your business is listed on page 1 of these sites' results, you now have a mention and a link from another site that's ranking on page 1 of Google for your primary keywords.
✅ Keywords in the following sections DO impact rankings:
1. GBP Business Name ™️
Though it's against the rules to use anything other than your official business name, Google rarely suspends businesses that do 🙄
This is the most powerful GBP section you can add keywords to.
To be safe from suspension, change your business name officially in the following places as well:
🔸 Government sources (register a "Doing Business As" name)
🔸 In your logo
🔸 On your website
🔸 In your signage
🔸 In all your citations (@whitespark can help you with this)
🔸 Website not updated in past 6 years, had a 1-sentence homepage, and had no other pages
🔸 No new reviews in 6 years
🔸 No new links
🔸 No updates to GBP
Thus, the ONLY variable in my test were the predefined services.
First, I established the business's baseline rankings by creating a new campaign in the @whitespark Local Rank Tracker to specifically track the keywords from the predefined services.
As you can see, with 5 days of tracking, the business had hardly any rankings for these terms.