Titles, metadata’s No. 1 superhero ability

Titles are the hardest working pieces of writing on your site, and demonstrate perfectly why metadata deserves the title of superhero of the Internet.

The title is inevitably going to be seen many more times than the page itself. It will be seen by people who read the page, as well as those who don’t. Many readers will see the page title as a link, either on your own site or somewhere else. It’s essential that page titles make sense when used outside the context of the original page.

Types of title

There are two titles that can be associated with a page. The page title is the ‘headline’, and this title should be used for any internal links to the page. The browser title is what appears in the web browsers title bar. It is this title that will be used when your page is listed in a search engine results page, or when bookmarked.  When another site links to you, it is up to their web editor whether they use the page title or the browser title.

One really simple method of ensuring that page titles make sense out of context is to append the site name to the pages browser title.

Links

When another site links to you, they will usually use your page title as the link text.  This is very beneficial for search engine optimisation, but if your title needs rewording to make sense, you lose control over this valuable asset.

A website has used the page title text as the bookmark text

Search engines

When your page gets shown on a search engine results page, it will be listed with other very similar pages that also match the search phrase. The title needs to reveal enough information so that the reader can tell what to expect on the page, and to confirm that it contains what they are searching for. If your title does not reveal this, they are likely to click on another site that looks more relevant.

Browser title used as link in search engine results page

Bookmarks

Bookmarking tools will use your pages browser title for the bookmark title. Unlike the search engine results page, a list of bookmarks can be totally unrelated to each other and won’t be shown adjacent to the page description. If a reader bookmarks your page and the title is too generic then they’re unlikely to return, even if they want to.