What makes a good title tag
The title tag is the headline of your search result and the strongest relevance signal you write by hand. A good one does three things: tells the searcher exactly what the page is, uses the words they typed, and fits on one line.
The checks
- Pixel width. Google cuts desktop titles at about 600 pixels. We measure your title in 20px Arial in your own browser and show where the cut would fall.
- Characters. 30 to 60 is the comfortable range. Very short titles waste the space; long ones get cut or rewritten.
- Keyword position. Titles that start with the search phrase are easier to scan and survive truncation. If the keyword sits in the part that gets cut off, searchers never see it.
- All caps. Capitals are wider and read as shouting. Google may rewrite them.
- Repeated words. "Cheap shoes, cheap boots, cheap socks" reads as stuffing. Say it once.
- Brand first. "Acme | Invoice API" pushes the topic to the back. Unless people search for your brand, lead with the topic and end with the brand.
A pattern that works
Primary keyword: specific benefit | Brand
For example: "Invoice API: Send and Track Invoices in One Call | Acme". The phrase people search comes first, the reason to click follows, and the brand confirms who you are. For a homepage, the brand can lead, since people search for it by name.
Titles across a site
Every page needs its own title. Duplicates confuse search engines about which page to show and are among the first things an audit flags. Run a live page through the SEO checker to see its title alongside the rest of its on-page signals, and preview the full snippet in the SERP preview.