Definition
The title tag is a HTML code giving a title to a web page. It appears on the search results and on a browser’s tab (see example below).
Why is it important in SEO?
The Title tag is the first tag the search engine will read to understand the topic of a page. It is displayed on the search engine results pages (SERP), and therefore gives users valuable information to decide if they should click on your site!
How to optimize it for SEO?
The 3 main criteria of the title tag:
It must contain the main keyword of your query. On the query "women's shoes" below, we see that all the results of the first page have put this keyword in the <title> tag and at the beginning of the title. And therefore by consequence, since we target only one page for a keyword: you should never have duplicate Title tags in the site.
It must contain 10 to 12 words and not exceed 65 characters, otherwise Google may cut it. On the image, the 5th result, corresponding to the brand Spartoo, where we see that Google has replaced the content by '...' .
Attractiveness: To put forward a value proposition, or at least to incite to click. Typically above, we see that Zalando tells us that "delivery is free", Sarenza tells us that they are "the number 1 in women's shoes", Spartoo tells us that there is a "great choice of shoes". So many reasons to make you want to click.
Useful recommendations to optimize your title tag
Put yourself in the shoes of an Internet user typing a request.
Distinguish the needs and issues of the query.
Emphasize your main arguments related to the query
Include punctuation to make your title more dynamic
Integrate your commercial data
Example: Cheap shoes: Get 50% off all products!
We said above that the tag must be attractive. A trick that works well for this is to use this kind of vocabulary:
"The best ..."
"Top 10 best ..."
"All about ..."
This allows you to position yourself on the "long tail" versions of your main keyword, and to be attractive, to make the user want to click on your link!
How to set it up?
To create or modify the tag, you will just have to modify the HTML code of your page, in the <head> tag which corresponds to the header of the HTML document.
Overall:
Most of the time, if you use a CMS (content management system), you just have to modify it in the GUI (User Interface)
An example in Wordpress :
For an e-merchant:
For an e-commerce or a marketplace site, it is often simpler and recommended to automate the creation of your Title tags, following preset rules according to the types of pages: product page, category page, etc.
You know everything about the title tag, it's up to you to optimize your pages!