Type site: followed by your web address into Google and you’ll see your website the way a stranger does: a list of blue headlines, one for each page. Those headlines are your page titles, and on many small business websites they say “Home”, “Services” or nothing but the business name. The good news: learning how to write page titles for SEO is one of the quickest wins you can make yourself, with no developer required.
What is a page title?
Page title (title tag): a short line of text you give each page to tell search engines and searchers what that page is about. Google often uses it as the clickable blue headline in search results, and your browser shows it on the tab.
It isn’t always the same as the big heading at the top of your page, although the two often match. You usually set it in your website platform’s SEO settings, page by page.
Why page titles matter for SEO
Page titles matter because they’re one of the clearest signals you give Google about what a page covers, and they’re the first thing a searcher reads before deciding whether to click. Google’s own guidance on title links asks site owners to write titles that are descriptive, concise and unique to each page (Google Search Central: influencing your title links).
The reality is that a title like “Home” gives Google and a searcher almost nothing to go on. Picture someone searching “bookkeeper Cleveland”. The result that reads “Bookkeeping in Cleveland | Redlands Ledger Co” answers her question before she’s clicked. (Redlands Ledger Co is a made-up business.)
How to check your page titles in ten minutes
You don’t need any tools for this. Just Google and a notepad.
- Open Google and type site:yourwebsite.com.au (no spaces, no https).
- Read the blue headline for each page in the results.
- Write down any that say Home, Services, Untitled, Page 1, or only your business name.
- Note any two pages that share the same title.
- Look for titles that get cut off with “…” because they’re too long.
- Circle the pages that matter most for enquiries: usually your homepage, your main service pages and your contact page.
Found five or six to fix? That’s normal. Plenty of websites go live with the platform’s default titles, and nobody ever goes back to change them. It isn’t a sign you’ve done anything wrong. It’s just a job that never made it onto the list, and now it has.
One heads-up. Google sometimes rewrites the headline it shows, particularly when a title is vague or crammed with keywords. A clear title still gives it the best thing to work with.
How to write page titles that Google understands
A simple pattern works for most service businesses: what you do, where you do it, then your name.
- Lead with the service. Use the words a client would type, not your internal name for it.
- Add your location if you serve a local area: a suburb, a city or a region.
- Finish with your business name.
- Keep it to around 50 to 60 characters. That’s a widely used rule of thumb rather than a Google rule, but it keeps most titles from being cut off.
- Make every page different. Two pages with the same title leave Google to choose between them.
- Write it for a person. Repeating a keyword three times won’t help, and it reads badly.
Here’s the pattern in action, using the same made-up business:
| Page | Before | After |
| Homepage | Home | Bookkeeping in Cleveland |
| Service page | Services | BAS and GST Help for Sole Traders |
| Contact page | Contact Us | Book a Bookkeeping Chat in Cleveland |
| About page | About | About Our Cleveland Bookkeeping Team |
Where to change your page titles
Most website platforms put the page title in each page’s SEO settings. On WordPress it’s usually in your SEO plugin’s box below the page editor. Wix and Squarespace both keep it in the page’s SEO settings. [Karen: confirm these platform pointers before publishing] If you can’t find it, search your platform’s help centre for “SEO title” and you’ll land in the right spot.
Change one page, save it, and move on to the next. There’s no need to do the whole site in one sitting. Google picks up the new title the next time it crawls the page, which can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
Do page titles help with AI search too?
They should. AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews draw on what’s written on web pages when they answer questions, so a page that plainly says “Bookkeeping in Cleveland” is easier to match to a question about bookkeepers in Cleveland than one called “Home”. [Karen: light confirm, this is sound reasoning rather than a published Google claim]
Page titles work best alongside the words on the page itself. If you haven’t already, check that your website says where you work, which I cover in how to show up in local search for the suburbs you serve [Karen: paste the 30 Sep blog URL].
Your next step
Start with your homepage. Run the site: search, read the headline, and rewrite it using the pattern above. Ten minutes, one page, done.
If you’d like help working out the words your clients actually type into Google, that’s what I do every week at Blossom and Grow SEO. Get in touch and we’ll have a chat.
