How to write a good title tag (with examples)

A good title tag puts your most important keyword up front, stays around 60 characters (or roughly 580 pixels), is unique to that one page, and gives searchers a concrete reason to click on you rather than someone else. In practice, you write it like a tiny ad: keyword + promise + brand name. All you need is the search intent of the page and an honest picture of what that page actually delivers. Below we walk through it step by step, with examples of what works and what goes wrong.

The title tag (in HTML the <title>, often called the “SEO title” or “meta title” in SEO tools) is the blue, clickable heading Google shows in the search results. It’s the first thing a searcher sees of you, even before the meta description. A high ranking earns you little if nobody clicks, and your title largely determines whether that happens.

What you need before you start

• The search intent of the page. Is someone looking for information (“what is…”), a comparison (“best…”), or a solution they want to buy? Your title has to confirm that intent at a glance.
• Your primary keyword. One term per page you want to be found for, not five.
• An honest promise. Something concrete the page delivers: a number, a result, a benefit.
• A preview tool. Use our SERP snippet preview to see how your title and description look in Google before you publish. That saves guessing about length and truncation.

Step 1: Put your most important keyword up front

How: start your title with the term people search for. Google weighs the first words more heavily, and searchers scan only the start of each line. If your keyword sits at the end, it disappears the moment Google truncates the title.

Example:

• Wrong: Everything you need to know about our approach to plumbing in Ghent
• Right: Need a plumber in Ghent? Available 24/7, fixed price

In the second version, “Plumber Ghent” is right at the top, exactly what the searcher types.

Common mistake: starting with your brand name or with filler words like “Welcome to” or “Discover.” They cost you the most valuable characters in your title and tell the searcher nothing.

Step 2: Stay around 60 characters

How: Google shows about 580 pixels of title text, which works out to roughly 50 to 60 characters. Anything beyond that gets cut off with ”…”. Aim for 50 to 60 characters so your whole message stays visible, including on mobile.

Example:

• Too long (70 characters): The 10 best tips for writing meta titles that really drive more clicks
• Good (43 characters): Writing a title tag: 7 tips for more clicks

Common mistake: cramming your whole title to exactly 60 characters with side details. Shorter and sharper often beats longer and vaguer. Pixels count, by the way, not characters: a title full of wide letters (m, w) truncates sooner than one with narrow letters. So always check in a preview tool instead of counting characters.

Step 3: Make every title tag unique

How: never give two pages the same title. Duplicate titles confuse Google about which page belongs to which query, and your pages start cannibalizing each other’s rankings. If you work with a template (for product pages, say), make sure the variable parts make the title genuinely distinctive.

Example:

• Wrong (identical on every city page): Need a painter? Request a quote
• Right: Painter Antwerp | Quote within 24 hours and Painter Bruges | Quote within 24 hours

Common mistake: thinking the “SEO title” and “title tag” are two separate things and accidentally filling in both in your CMS. It’s the same field. The title tag and the meta description work together as one pair, so keep both in mind.

Step 4: Give a reason to click (CTR optimization)

How: alongside your keyword you need a reason to click: a number, a year, a benefit, an emotional trigger, or a sign of trust. This is the difference between ranking and getting traffic. Two results in positions 3 and 4 can differ sharply in clicks purely because of their title.

Example:

• Bare: Writing a meta title
• With a reason to click: Writing a meta title: 7 rules + examples (2026)

Numbers (“7 rules”), specificity (”+ examples”), and recency (“2026”) make your result more appealing than the bare version.

Common mistake: overselling the promise. A title that promises “free” or “in 5 minutes” while the page doesn’t deliver earns clicks that immediately bounce back to Google. That behavior undermines your ranking over time. To raise your clicks structurally without overdoing it, focus on improving your organic CTR.

Step 5: Put your brand name at the end (usually)

How: for most pages, the brand name belongs at the end, separated with a | or -, so the keyword comes first. Exception: if your brand is itself the search term (people look you up by name) or you’re a well-known brand, the name may go first.

Example:

• Information page: What is a meta title? Explanation and examples | Customer Impact
• Homepage / brand-driven: Customer Impact | B2B growth marketing agency

Common mistake: putting the brand name first or twice on every page. That wastes space and pushes your keyword out.

Step 6: Check what Google makes of it

How: Google rewrites titles on the order of half the time, especially if your title is too long, contains keyword stuffing, or doesn’t match the query. Google then picks its own heading from your H1 or page text. You can’t fully control this, but you reduce the chance of a rewrite by staying close to the search intent, within the length, and without overdoing it.

Example of why Google rewrites:

• Your title: SEO SEO agency SEO specialist SEO Ghent cheap SEO services SEO
• What Google shows: SEO agency Ghent | [Brand name] (Google throws out the stuffing)

Common mistake: thinking your title is fixed the moment you set it. After publishing, check in Google itself (search site:yourdomain.com page) or in Search Console which title actually appears, and adjust if Google rejects your version.

Example: a title rewritten from wrong to right

Take a service page from an accounting firm that wants to rank for “accountant for SMEs.”

Before: Welcome to the page about our comprehensive accounting services for all kinds of businesses

• 91 characters, so heavily truncated in Google.
• The keyword “accountant” only shows up around position 45 in the text.
• No reason to click, no brand name.

After: Accountant for SMEs | Fixed price, no surprises

• 47 characters, fully visible.
• The keyword “accountant” and audience “SMEs” are up front.
• “Fixed price, no surprises” gives a concrete reason to click.

Such a rewrite is exactly the kind of detail that stacks up into results. At Gom we made the website climb several positions and, after 66 days, pull in more than four times as many visitors, partly by consistently carrying this kind of on-page work across all pages.

Common mistakes (checklist of what goes wrong)

• Keyword stuffing: repeating the same keyword three times. Reads spammy and invites a rewrite from Google.
• Too long: over 60 characters, so your promise gets cut off.
• Duplicates: the same title on multiple pages, which causes cannibalization.
• Clickbait: a promise the page doesn’t deliver, so visitors bounce back to Google.
• No keyword: a creative title without the term people search for.
• Filler words up front: “Welcome to,” “Discover,” “Home,” which eat up valuable space.
• Brand name twice or up front: on every page, when that pushes the keyword out.

Checklist: a good title tag in 8 points

1. The most important keyword is up front.
2. Length around 50 to 60 characters (checked in a preview tool, not guessed).
3. Unique to this one page.
4. Contains a concrete reason to click (number, year, benefit).
5. The promise matches what the page delivers.
6. Brand name at the end (unless it’s a brand-driven query).
7. No repetition or stuffing of the keyword.
8. After publishing, checked whether Google shows your version.

If you want to tackle this systematically across your whole site, look at how your title fits into your broader on-page SEO, how to write the accompanying meta description, and what CTR benchmarks per position say about the traffic a good title brings in. The basis of it all is in the SEO fundamentals.

Why this also helps your AI visibility

A sharp title does more than win clicks in Google. AI search engines like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews use your title and the first words of your page to determine what the page is precisely about and whether they cite you as a source. A title that names the topic clearly and specifically makes your page the clearest candidate to quote, exactly as we explain in what is GEO. Anyone who wants to be found both in Google and in AI answers therefore starts with the same basic hygiene: clear, unique, honest titles on every page.

Want us to take on your titles, click-through rates, and rankings together? Check out our SEO services or get in touch for a concrete plan.