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SEO Guide · Chapter 3 of 30
What a title tag should say for a local business
This page is for an owner whose pages show up in Google as the business name and nothing else. After reading it you will know what each title should say and how to see every title on your site in one list.
In one paragraph
A title tag should name the service, the town, and the business, in that order, in 50 to 60 characters, because it is the blue headline Google shows and the first thing a searcher reads. For a local business that means "Laser Hair Removal in Meridian | Willow and Vine Med Spa", not "Home" or the business name alone. Every page needs its own title and no two pages should share one. The title is set in a field in your site editor or SEO plugin, separate from the visible heading on the page.
What a title tag is
The title tag is a line of text in the HTML of each page that Google uses as the blue headline in search results and that a browser shows on the tab. It is written as <title>Laser Hair Removal in Meridian | Willow and Vine Med Spa</title> and sits in the part of the page a visitor never sees. It is separate from the large heading at the top of the page, which is the H1, and the two can say different things.
Google reads the title tag as the strongest signal of what the page is about, and it shows it to the searcher as the thing to click, including as the headline above a featured snippet. Those are two jobs. The title has to carry the words a person types, and it has to read as a sensible headline once it is on the results page next to four competitors.
Google shows about 60 characters before cutting the line off. When a title is missing, too long, or the same on every page, Google will write its own from the page heading or a link, and what it writes is rarely what you would have chosen.
What a broken title tag looks like on a med spa site
Willow and Vine Med Spa in Meridian sells treatment packages that average $1,200 and has nine pages on its site. The site was built from a template, and the template put the business name in the title field of every page. A search for site:willowandvinemedspa.com showed nine results, all headlined “Willow and Vine Med Spa”, with nothing to tell a searcher which one covered Botox and which one covered the membership.
The effect in search was direct. Someone in Meridian typing “laser hair removal meridian” saw three competitors whose titles said exactly that, and saw nothing from Willow and Vine, because none of its titles carried the words. The page existed and was indexed. It had never told Google what it was for.
The homepage title was worse in a different way. It read “Home | Willow and Vine”, which is what the page builder writes when the field is left empty. “Home” is the single most common word in title tags on small business sites and it has never brought anyone a customer.
A worked example: retitling every page of a Meridian med spa
Each page got one title that names what the page sells, where, and who is selling it. Character counts are shown because the limit is real and the old titles wasted most of it.
| Page | Old title | Characters | New title | Characters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home | Home | Willow and Vine | 22 | Med Spa in Meridian, Idaho | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 52 |
| Botox and Dysport | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 23 | Botox and Dysport in Meridian | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 55 |
| Laser hair removal | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 23 | Laser Hair Removal in Meridian | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 56 |
| Microneedling | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 23 | Microneedling in Meridian, Idaho | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 58 |
| Membership | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 23 | Med Spa Membership in Meridian | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 56 |
| Pricing | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 23 | Med Spa Pricing in Meridian | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 53 |
| Contact | Willow and Vine Med Spa | 23 | Contact Willow and Vine Med Spa in Meridian, Idaho | 50 |
This is what the laser hair removal result looked like in Google before and after, headline and description together.
Willow and Vine Med Spa
Welcome to Willow and Vine. We offer a full range of aesthetic services in a relaxing environment. Book your appointment today.
Laser Hair Removal in Meridian | Willow and Vine Med Spa
Laser hair removal in Meridian for legs, underarms, back, and face, in six-session packages. Same-week consultations at our office on Eagle Road.
The new titles share a pattern, and that is fine. The pattern is what a searcher is scanning for. The word that changes from page to page is the service, and it comes first because the left end of the line is what survives when Google shortens it on a phone.
How to check your own title tags
- Search Google for
site:yourdomain.comand read only the blue headlines. Any two that match, any that say “Home”, and any that are cut off with three dots are findings. - Install the free Screaming Frog SEO Spider, crawl your domain, and open the Page Titles tab. The filter on the right lists Missing, Duplicate, Over 60 Characters, and Same as H1 with the count of each.
- In Search Console, open the Performance report, switch to the Pages tab, and sort by impressions. A page with many impressions and a click rate under 2 percent has a title that people are seeing and not choosing.
- On any page of your site, right-click, choose View Page Source, and search for
<title>. What you find between the tags is what Google reads, whatever the page shows on screen. - On a WordPress site with Rank Math or Yoast, the title is edited in the SEO box below the page editor, not in the page heading. The meta description sits in the same box.
What we do about title tags
You will get a sheet listing every page on your site with its current title, its character count, and the new title we propose, in the same form as the table above. Each new title names the service, the town, and your business, and no two are alike. Once you approve the sheet the titles go live, and you will see them change in a site: search within a week or two as Google recrawls. Titles are rewritten in the first month of the SEO work we do for local businesses, because they are the cheapest change with the most direct effect on which searches you appear for.
Questions people ask about SEO: what a title tag should say for a local business
How long should a title tag be?
A title tag should be 50 to 60 characters, which is what Google shows before cutting the line off on most screens. Shorter titles waste space that could hold the town or the service. Longer ones lose their ending, so the business name should come last where it can be dropped without harm.
Is the title tag the same as the H1?
No, the title tag is the line Google shows in results and the browser shows on the tab, while the H1 is the large heading a visitor sees on the page. They can say different things, and often should, since the title is written for a results page and the H1 is written for someone already on your site. Both should name the service and the place.
Should I put my business name in the title tag?
Yes, at the end, after the service and the town. Searchers who already know your name will find you either way, and the ones who do not are searching for the service. Putting the name first pushes the words that matter past the point where Google cuts the line.
Why does Google show a different title than the one I wrote?
Google rewrites titles it judges too long, too repetitive, or unrelated to the page, and it usually pulls the replacement from the H1 or from links pointing at the page. A title of 50 to 60 characters that matches the page heading and names the service is rarely rewritten. Check the Performance report in Search Console to see which pages this affects.
Do keywords in the title tag help ranking?
Yes, the words in the title tag are one of the stronger signals Google uses to decide what a page is about and which searches it fits. Naming the service and the town in the title is what lets a local page appear for a local search. Repeating a word or stuffing several services into one title does not add anything and often gets the title rewritten.
This page is part of the The SEO guide for local businesses. The other guides: SEO, AEO, GEO.
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