How to Write the Perfect Title Tag to Increase Your Click Through Rate (CTR)

How to Write the Perfect Title Tag to Increase Your Click Through Rate (CTR)
Your title tag is the main thing standing between Google SERPs and your website. And if you can't get people to click through, then you can't get any website traffic. So today, we're going to be talking about crafting the perfect title tag to increase your click-through rate that will lead to more traffic and maybe...
Just maybe... higher Google rankings. Stay tuned.
What's up SEOs? Sam Oh here with Ahrefs, the SEO tool that helps you grow your search traffic, research your competitors and dominate your niche. Now, today is all about title tags. And it may not sound like the most exciting topic, but if there's one skill that you can master in SEO copywriting, then the title tag would be somewhere way up there. So let's get to it.
So what is a title tag? A title tag is HTML markup that specifies the title of a web page. And the two most common places that you'll see it is in Google search engine results pages and in your browser tab. Your title tag is important because it influences your click-through rate in Google search results.
And for quite some time, SEOs have hypothesized that higher click-through rates can increase your rankings.
And it makes sense why a lot of people share this belief. For example, let's assume that there are 10 results for a search query and 100% of the clicks go to result #5. And if everyone is clicking on the same result, then that may tell Google that the page serves search intent the best, right? So why not rank that page higher up? Now, whether you believe this theory or not, it's always a good idea to optimize for click-through rates because more clicks equals more traffic.
And more traffic equals more customers, which is why our goal is to increase your click-through rate. Now, to create this tutorial in as systematic of a way as possible, let's set a few general guidelines. First, we want to create something that's click-worthy and not clickbait. And this goes beyond the user's happiness. Creating clickbait headlines is going to do you more harm than good because of something called pogo-sticking.
This is when a user clicks a result in Google SERP and then immediately goes back to the search results page. We don't know exactly how big this behavioral metric may be, but logically speaking, it tells us that search intent likely wasn't met. Instead, the title should descriptively reflect what the page is about. Second guideline. Try and keep your title within 50-60 characters.
Now, Google SERPs actually work in pixels, but this length should help you avoid truncation in the search results pages. And you can use a SERP preview tool like this one from Portent or Yoast SEO plugin if you use WordPress. The third guideline is to either write in sentence case or title case. So, sentence case would have a capital letter on the first word, and title case is when the first letter of each word is capitalized. Now, I have never seen a Top 10 ranking page with a title tag with all caps like this: HOW TO MAKE A WEBSITE: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE Alright, now that the general stuff is out of the way, let's get into Keyword Optimization.
Pages don't rank for just a single keyword. They actually rank for hundreds or even thousands of other long-tail variations. In our study on 3 million random search queries, we found that the average #1 ranking page will also rank in the Top 10 for nearly 1,000 other relevant keywords. So rather than focusing on a singular keyword, we can actually target other long-tail phrases within the broader topic without keyword stuffing. And this can be done by using modifier keywords.
A modifier keyword is an add-on to a base keyword. So for example, if you wanted to rank for "best headphones," then you could add "the" before the phrase, or add the current year to the end.
Or both. So let's get into a simple keyword research process. First, we need to identify the head term or parent topic of our target keyword.
So I'll go to Ahrefs Keywords Explorer tool and type in "which headphones should I buy." Next, I'll scroll down to the top 10 SERPs where I'll be looking for a couple of things. First, I'm going to scan through the "Top Keyword" column to see what our "head term" should be. And you'll see that the first two results are actually ranking for "best headphones," which tells us that we can target this phrase and still rank for our original query "which headphones should I buy." So I'll click through to "best headphones," which will show us the metrics for our new keyword target.
Scrolling back down to the SERPs, we can analyze the types of pages that are ranking for our target keyword. And you can see that the majority of them look like blog posts that are all current guides and mostly follow the list-style post.
Next, let's go to the "Phrase Match" report and find some long-tail variations for this topic. Since there are nearly 13,000 keywords, we'll want to narrow down this list to relevant modifier keywords. So let's use the "Include" search box and search for common add-ons like "the," "buy," "for," and the current year, separated by commas.
Next, I'll set the dropdown to "Any," which will show us keywords that include any of these keywords in a list. Now you can see a few great ideas like using 2018, or taking a niche angle like "for running," "for gaming," and so on. Before you decide to choose any of these, it's vital that you assess search intent by looking at the SERP overview for the individual keywords. For example, clicking on the SERP button for "best headphones 2018" will show that "best headphones" is still the top keyword for the majority of the search results. But if we click on the SERP overview for "best headphones for running," you'll see that this is a more specific topic in itself that would likely require a different post.

 
Finally, "the best headphones" will show that the parent keyword again is "best headphones," for most results, which would qualify the keyword as a good long-tail variation and modifier keyword to use. Boom. So now we know that we can target these 3 keywords all within the same title without overdoing it since they flow naturally together. So the base of our title might be "The Best Headphones 2018." Now, this title isn't exactly "click-worthy," so let's put our heads together and take this title one step further.
Start by asking yourself: What makes my content unique? A few qualities to consider would be depth, quantity, speed, freshness, and brand. And it's important that you choose your qualities thoughtfully because it can define the angle you take when creating your content. For example, if it's an intimidating or lengthy task, then you might use a title like: "How to Make a Bookshelf From Scratch in Under 15 Minutes." But if it's complicated, then we can change this part to "Step-By-Step Guide." If it requires freshness, then use the current month or year, like we did in our "Best Headphones 2018" example.
Finally is brand. And brands can bring instant recognition and trust. So for example, "17 Best Headphones from Bose, Sennheiser, and More" might be attractive. Now looking through the top 10 Google rankings for our example keyword "best headphones," you can see that freshness is a common quality that these articles share.
So we'll take the freshness angle and sprinkle in a bit of depth. Again, our base title was "The Best Headphones 2018." So I'll change this to 27 Of The Best Headphones in 2018 (Reviewed and Rated). Another way to approach this is to tackle a pain point within your title. So we could change this to "27 Of The Best Headphones in 2018 That Won't Break the Bank," since price tends to be a common pain point when shopping for high-end tech.
You can also use power words to bring life to the topic like "27 Of The Best Headphones With Hair Raising Sound," or "Mind-Blowing" or "Flawless", or whatever power word best describes your content. Okay great! By now, you should know how to create a mind-blowing and hair-raising title.
But here's the thing: your title tag isn't really going to impact CTR from an SEO perspective until you reach the top 10. And that's because most people don't click to page 2 of Google search results.
So rather than rehashing other tutorials we already have on ranking on page one of Google, I want to show you how and what you should do to optimize for CTR once you are on the first page of Google. The first thing is to log in to your Google search console and go to the Performance Report. Next, click on Average CTR and Position, which will change the columns view for the data below. Now, we'll want to narrow in on queries that rank high enough and should be producing clicks. So I'll set a position filter and set the drop-down here to "Smaller than." And for value, I prefer to analyze pages that rank in the top 5 positions to get a better picture of low CTR queries.
Next, I'll sort by CTR in ascending order. Now, what I'm looking for here are keywords that get a decent number of impressions, are not producing many clicks, and the keyword is a match or a close variant to our pages' keyword target. The one that stands out to me is this one for the keyword "internet marketing strategies." It's had a good number of impressions, but attracts less than 1% of clicks, despite being in a top 3 ranking position.
And the reason why this one stands out so much is because this is the exact query that we were targeting in our article. So this would be an article that I'd want to look at in greater detail. And by greater detail, that would involve assessing whether we're meeting the search intent, which we can do by looking at the top 10 SERP.
I would also look at the search volume trends and clicks data, which you can see using Keywords Explorer tool. And if everything looks fine, then I'd go ahead and try another title to attract more clicks, while accurately describing what the article is about.
Now, an important takeaway here is that marginal increases in your click-through rate can result in massive gains. So for example, taking this page from sub 1% to just 2%, which is still below average, would more than double the traffic to this page from that single keyword alone. So if you want one actionable takeaway to get more organic traffic, then go to your Google Search Console, run through this process, and you may be able to find some low-hanging traffic opportunities right away.
Now, if you found this video helpful, then make sure to like, share and subscribe for more actionable SEO and marketing tutorials. And if you have an awesome tip that you'd like to share on titles or increasing CTR, then leave a comment below and I'd love to hear from you.
So keep grinding away and I'll see you in the next tutorial..
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