6 Oct, 2021

How to Boost Local SEO Traffic with Better Title Tags

Boost Local SEO Traffic

When it comes to search engine optimisation, there’s no magic formula that will enable you to get the best search ranking or the highest amount of web traffic. SEO is a series of simple and complex strategies that you implement and refine continuously to get the results you’re expecting. 

That being said, did you know that making simple adjustments to your title tags can go a long way towards generating a significant amount of local traffic to your site? Although the results are not immediate, tweaking your title tags can help boost local SEO traffic, allowing you to attract more visits and enquiries for your business. 

Here are several tips from us here at Springhill Marketing to help you convince more people to click through your site. 

1. Transform your title tags into questions

Let’s say you own a company that sells gardening supplies, and you’ve created a blog post about growing a vegetable garden. Instead of using the title “A Guide to Growing a Vegetable Garden,” you should consider converting your title tag into question form. For instance, you can write your heading this way: “How Can I Grow a Vegetable Garden?” 

Research showed that title tags phrased as questions tend to get 14.1% more clicks than those that aren’t. By making your title tags into questions, you can pique your audience’s curiosity. At the same time, it helps optimise your post for voice search, where user queries and keywords are often in question form. 

2. Limit your title tags to 40 to 50 characters

You probably think that longer title tags are better since you can put more keywords into them. However, data revealed that once your title tags go over the 60-character limit, you’ll see fewer clicks to your website. Therefore, to increase your local traffic, you should use shorter titles. Limit your title tags to 40 to 50 characters to get the best results. 

3. Add the search query into the URL

While this doesn’t technically involve your title tags, incorporating the exact search query into your webpage’s URL can help entice users into clicking your links on search result pages. According to research, this strategy can help you get 45% more clicks. 

Instead of making your URL just a series of random letters or numbers, you should edit it to feature the target keyword or search query. Therefore, based on the example above, your URL should look something like this: https://yoursite.co.uk/how-to-grow-a-vegetable-garden/. 

4. Incorporate “power words” into your title tags

Power words are words that make your message more forceful. They best describe what you’re trying to come across. This is why you should take the time to use them in your title tags to boost local SEO traffic

You can use words such as “simple,” “easy,” or “effective” to entice people into clicking your link. Using the example above, you can write your title as “Easy Way to Grow Your Own Vegetable Garden.” 

5. Inject emotion into your title tags

To generate more visits to your site, you can also try creating emotional headlines or title tags. Research showed that titles that invoke emotions in your audience have 17.3% higher click-through rates than plain or bland headlines (CTR). 

To illustrate our point, let’s take a look at the examples below: 

  1. Growing a Vegetable Garden
  2. Growing Your Own Vegetable Garden Can Be Hard Work 

The second one is significantly better because it empathises with your audience and validates their concerns or fear. It also has higher emotional marketing value as it gives the readers the impression that there’s a solution at hand. 

6. Don’t forget your meta description

Did you know that you can get a 5.8% higher CTR if you pair your title tag with a meta description? A meta description provides both search engines and your audience a summary of what your webpage is all about. It is an essential local SEO tool as it allows you to assure your prospects that your page is relevant to their query and tell them that you have what they need. 

What’s more, your meta description is the only place on search result pages where you can promote your website for free. Therefore, make sure that your descriptions always have a call to action. This will further convince your audience to click through your website. 

7. Include years in your title

Adding years to your title tags can also help boost local SEO traffic. Research showed that headlines with the current year in them (e.g. 5 SEO Secrets You Should Know in 2021) have almost 5% more clicks than those without. They give the audience the impression that your web content is fresh, relevant, and timely. 

Add Magic to Your Title Tags

Something as simple as making adjustments to your title tags can go a long way towards generating more local traffic to your site. Because SEO is an ongoing effort, you should make constant improvements to every part of your site. No matter how big or small these tweaks are, they can contribute to your success when done correctly. Therefore, consider the pointers discussed above to get the results you’re expecting. 

Do you need help optimising your business website for local SEO? We at Springhill Marketing can assist you. Please speak with us today and let our team of SEO experts show you what we can do.

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