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  • Google Snippets Update – What’s in a Title?

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    Posted on July 26, 2012 at 3:03 pm

    Among the daily changes to Google’s algorithm, a recent adjustment had SEO experts scratching their heads. The new Google Snippets update changes the way we strategically determine titles and title tags. Here’s a quick rundown of the modifications:

    For long titles and title tags, search results will now show a truncated title tag with higher keyword relevancy.

    Before: Title tags and headers (usually the title of the post/page) are typically pulled into the first line (underlined in blue on Google) of search results.

    Now: Google is trying to show the user their query in the search result. Users scan for, and assign higher relevance to, results that include their search query. This change is a plus because it will increase chances that the user will click on search results as they become more relevant. The downside? Google may pull the URL into the first line of results as it tries to determine the closest match to the search query. For those of us who care about what our results look like, we will want to shorten the title or amend the title tags to be more precise (include our target keywords) so we can have more control over search results. Play ball!

    The first line of search results is now shown based on pixel width.

    Before: In the past Google has shown up to 70 characters.

    Now: Wider letters like “A” and “W” take up more space and directly impact how much of your title will show.

    So, here’s what we recommend trying:

    STEP 1: Diagnosis: Since it would be absurdly time-consuming to go through every page on our site and check individual titles, we decided to target the most popular pages first (determined by number of visits over the last year and those with the most links) to determine if the page needs a shortened title.

    STEP 2: Update Title Tags: We will eliminate unnecessary words and choose target keywords that define the page or post. We’ll include action-oriented and enticing words. (e.g., title: Forget social media! Let’s talk about thought leadership distribution & engagement V.S. the more keyword rich title: social media & thought leadership distribution).

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