A page title is the HTML element that names a web page. It is defined in the <title></title> tags in the <head> of the page, and it is what appears in the browser tab, in the Google search result, in a bookmark, and in the preview card when someone shares your link. It is also called the title tag or the SEO title.
The H1 tag is a different thing that is easy to confuse with it, so this guide covers both.
What Is The Difference Between H1 And Title Tag?
The page title is defined in the HTML <head> section, while the H1 tag is part of the <body> of a page. The page title is shown in the search results snippet and as the tab name in the browser, while the h1 tag is only shown on the page itself.
What Is Page Title Tag?
When you view the HTML code of any webpage and examine carefully the <head> section, you will notice the title of the page which is enclosed in <title></title> HTML tags.
Whatever is defined in the <title></title> tag is shown as the tab name in the browser window and as the title of the page in the search engine results pages.
The page title is also used in the social snippet on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and other social networks.
Where page titles appear. It is worth knowing every place this one piece of text ends up, because it is more than a search engine field:
- Browser tabs – the text at the top of the browser window or tab.
- Search results – the clickable headline on Google and other search engines.
- Bookmarks – the default name saved when a visitor adds the page to their favorites.
- Share previews – the title shown when the link is posted to social media or sent in a messaging app.
- Screen readers – the first thing announced when the page loads.
How do you define the page title tag? In most modern CMS, whatever you type as the title of a page, it is automatically converted into a title tag in HTML.
If you are using WordPress, you can change the Page Title value using Yoast SEO or some other SEO plugin.
The page title is also referred to as an SEO title because it has an impact on your SEO.
Why Are Page Titles Important?
The page title is very important for SEO purposes for a number of reasons. It is part of the optimization rules of on-page SEO.
To be more precise, the title is important because:
It gives search engines a big clue as to the content of a page. Search engines during the crawling and indexing phase try to associate a page with related keywords and the page title is one of the elements they consider.
It is shown in the search results. As explained above, the page title is shown in the search results and it should be interesting to encourage users to click and visit your website.
It is shown in the social media snippets. The title of the page is also shown on Facebook and other social networks when your posts get shared. A good title will attract more likes and shares and this means greater visibility, which indirectly affects SEO.
It tells visitors where they are. Someone with a dozen tabs open reads the title to find your page again. A title that starts with your brand name instead of the topic makes every one of your tabs look identical.
It is an accessibility requirement. Screen readers announce the page title before anything else on the page, so for a blind or low-vision visitor it is the first and sometimes only signal of what they have landed on. A vague title such as “Home” leaves that visitor with nothing to go on, which is why a descriptive title is a usability fix as much as an SEO one.
How To Optimize Your Page Titles?
Optimizing your page titles for SEO is a great way to increase your organic traffic without having to publish new content or get new links.
Follow these simple rules:
Include in your page title search terms that users recognize – Having the same or similar search terms in the title makes it more relevant to users and this increases your CTR (Click Through Rate).
Put the important words first – Google truncates long titles in the results, so anything you care about belongs near the front rather than after your brand name.
Add a question in your title – Title tags that contain a question get more clicks. This is normal because in many cases users are ‘asking’ Google a question and when they see the same (or similar) question in a search snippet, they click to get the answer.
Add brackets and numbers – Another way to make your title tags more attractive is to add brackets with a number. For example, “How to optimize your headings (5 rules).”
Keep the length of the title to 60 characters or less – There is no actual limit on how long a <title> element can be. Google truncates the title link in the search results as needed, typically to fit the width of the device, so 60 characters is a practical target rather than a rule.
Make every title on your site different – Repeated or boilerplate titles make it impossible for a user to tell two of your results apart, and Google names this as one of the reasons it replaces a title.
No need to include your domain name – Unless you have something specific to say about your brand, there is no need to include your domain name in the title. Google does this automatically in the search snippets (whenever they believe that is needed).
Put your keywords in the title, not a meta keywords tag – Google ignores the meta keywords tag, so the title is where your main search term belongs.
Why Google Sometimes Shows A Different Title
If you have ever searched for one of your own pages and found a headline you did not write, nothing is broken. Google calls the headline on a search result the title link, and generating it is fully automated. Your <title> element is the strongest input, but it is not the only one.
According to Google's own documentation, the sources it draws on include:
- Content in <title> elements
- The main visual title shown on the page
- Heading elements, such as <h1> elements
- Content in og:title meta tags
- Other content that is large and prominent through style treatments
- Other text contained in the page
- Anchor text on the page, and text within links pointing to the page
- WebSite structured data
Google replaces a title when it detects a problem with it. The issues it names are half-empty titles such as “| Site Name”, obsolete titles that still mention last year's event, titles that do not match the page, micro-boilerplate repeated across a site, and pages with no clear main title.
Two things follow from that list, and both are the practical reason this page exists. Your H1 is one of the sources Google reads when deciding what to show, so an H1 that contradicts your title gives it a reason to pick something else. And changes take time: Google has to recrawl and reprocess the page before a new title appears, which can take days or weeks.
What Is an H1 Tag?
Unlike the page title, the H1 tag is shown only at the top of the page or in other places in the body of a page specified by <h1></h1> tags.
In a typical WordPress installation, the H1 tag is used to display the title of a page within the page content.
If you want to add more H1 tags to a page, just edit your HTML and add this code:
<h1>This is an H1 Tag</h1>
Why Is The H1 Header Tag Important For SEO?
Optimizing your H1 tag may not be the most critical SEO factor, but many small changes can generate big results – this is what SEO is all about.
So, why it’s important to pay attention to your H1 Tags? When search engines crawl a page, they look for signals to help them understand how a page is structured and the meaning of the content.
One of those signals is the H1 tag. Usually, it is positioned at the top of the page and has the same value as the page title.
Search engines read the value of the H1, and they use it as a strong signal of what the page is all about.
A good way to visualize this is to think about the structure of a book where the book title (that’s the H1) gives you a very good idea of what the book is about. Then the chapter titles give details about the individual topics (the H2 tags in SEO).
Here is a visual representation of how heading tags should be arranged on a webpage.
Best SEO practices indicate that:
- A page should only have one H1 tag
- The H1 tag should be in the <body></body> of the page
- Headings should be hierarchical, i.e., first the H1, then H2s, then H3s, etc.
- Headings should contain your target keywords or similar to help both users and search engines understand what the particular section is all about.
- Headings should be properly formatted, i.e. the H1 tag to use a bigger font size than H2 and H3.
Should H1 Be The Same As The Page Title?
They do not have to be identical, but they should say the same thing.
Google's current guidance on title links asks you to make it obvious which text is the main title of the page, and it suggests putting that title text in the first visible <h1> element. Since the H1 is also one of the sources Google reads when it generates the headline for your search result, an H1 that disagrees with your title tag is an invitation for Google to write its own.
What is the common SEO practice, and what you should do?
Keep the two aligned. Where it helps, let the title tag carry a search term the H1 does not need, for example a year or a qualifier that reads naturally in a search result but would look odd as a heading on the page.
Most website content management systems (CMS), such as WordPress, enclose the page title in H1 tags and there is no need to change.
How Many H1 Tags Should a Page Have?
It’s okay to have more than one H1 tag on a page, but best SEO practices indicate that a page should have only one H1 tag. Any other headings can be formatted as H2, H3, and H4 tags.
What happens if you have more than one H1 tag on a page?
Having more than one H1 tag on a page will not break your SEO. But as mentioned above, since the whole SEO process is about optimizing many small things that together can make a big difference, it’s better to keep to the guidelines and provide for only one H1 tag per page.
Key Learnings
A page title is the HTML element that names your page, and it does more work than most people realize: it is the headline in the search results, the name of the browser tab, the default bookmark name, the share preview, and the first thing a screen reader announces.
The page title is a critical SEO factor and an element that needs your full attention. It is what users see as part of your search snippet in the search engine result pages and the first thing they see once they land on your page.
To avoid any conflicts and be consistent with best SEO practices, make sure that your page title and H1 tags say the same thing. Google reads both when it decides what headline to show, and disagreement between them is one of the reasons it writes its own.
It’s not the end of the world if you have multiple H1 tags on a page, but for maximum SEO optimization, it’s better to have only one.
