Google has made so many changes since the start of the year that some site owners are struggling to catch up. Although you might be on top of the big stuff, the small things could still trip you up. One of those small things is your title tags. Title tags tend to be written and then forgotten. A recent algorithm update by Google should bring them back on your radar.
Three of Google’s algorithm changes concerned the choosing of alternative title text when the title tag is judged inappropriate. The changes were relatively small, in the scheme of things, but for some sites it had a big effect. Specifically, it changed the title of their page listing in the SERPs to present the end of the page’s URL, for example taking ‘interesting-notes-on-SEO’ from ‘www.example.com/blog/interesting-notes-on-SEO’.
Why it’s happening
The alternate titles are triggered when the original title seems too long. An easy fix for the situation is to apply a custom title tag with a short, search-engine-friendly title.
Why you should worry about this
The way your listing appears in the search engine results pages has a huge impact on the amount of traffic you get through. Just being in the first ten results isn’t enough – you also have to make more of an impression than your competitors.
Titles are search engine optimization tools that work right from the SERPs. This is why title and description tags are some of the things an SEO agency will first work on.