In this article, we will cover techniques for detecting and correcting title tag errors. As a reminder on these tags’ definition, as well as their role, don’t hesitate to check this article out.
The first step is to locate the title tags on your website. During an audit, a crawler is used to locate all the URLs and their tags.
It’s also possible to use other means:
By using a plugin: we can see the tag when we are on the page
By consulting the page’s source code (right click > display the source code, then look for "<title>")
However, these 2 solutions still have a major drawback: they allow on-the-fly consultation on a page, and not a whole site’ complete listing.
Case #1: missing tags
Let's analyze the pages which don't have a title tag.
If there is none: so much the better, there’s nothing to do
If there are any: locate the number and type of page(s) concerned:
If these are pages to be deindexed (shopping cart, etc.), check that they are deindexed or proceed to deindex them.
If these are low interest pages, like the T&Cs or the recruiting page, add a title to clarify, even if it won't have a direct impact on the SEO strategy.
If these are pages supposed to bring SEO traffic: you must quickly add a title tag optimized according to SEO rules.
Case #2: duplicate tags
Let's move on to the duplicate Title tags. As a reminder, you should never have 2 identical Title tags on your website, because it’s either a sign of duplicate pages, or of several pages targeting a single keyword, which strongly restrains the page and site’s SEO.
If there is none: so much the better, there’s nothing to do
If there are any: locate the number and type of page(s) concerned:
In the case of product pages with variants (color, size, etc.): we advise you to specify in the Title the unique variant for this product. If there is no SEO interest in this variant (if no one is looking for such a precise request), we even advise you to delete the page and redirect it to a single product page which concentrates all the "useless" variants in SEO. But it all depends on your technical / CMS architecture.
If they are paginated pages: we recommend that you modify the title to indicate "page 2" / "page 3". More details in this article.
If these are pages supposed to be different: then, simply modify the title tags to be more precise. If you’ve got "real estate agency + city" pages, specify the city in the title and not just "real estate agency".
If these are duplicate pages, in other words multiple existing URLs that display exactly the same content, then this is probably a technical issue that needs to be fixed. To do so, choose the URL that is linked within the website (= receives links in the website), and do a 301 redirect from the wrong URL to the right one + remove all internal links made at the duplicate URL. Here is an example:
3 pages for car park rental in Angers: there is probably only one page which is linked in the menu and the navigation ==> choose it.
Another example:
Here, we see that the French blog page exists on 2 URLs: with and without the "/". If this is the case on 2 or 3 URLs that you’ve spotted, then it’s probably the case for the whole site ==> then, check with your technical team, choose a version, and redirect in 301 the wrong one to the right one for all URLs on the website.
Case #3: tags that are too long
As a reminder, the title tag must not exceed 65 characters, otherwise it’ll be cut by the search engines, which can affect the page’s click rate on the given keyword.
In this case, we recommend that you shorten them, except in the case of no SEO interest’s pages (CGV, recruitment, etc.).
Case #4: tags that are too short
It would be unfortunate to have short title tags, given that this is THE on-page tag that the engine sees first. This tag’s modification is sometimes enough to gain a lot of positions.
We recommend that you use all the title tags that are under 30 characters, in order to flesh them out with rich semantics for the keyword concerned.
Now you know how to analyze and correct your Title tags! Let's move on to the next point. :)
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