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How to Fix Shopify SEO Problems: SEO Page Titles

Mike Simmons
Updated

Who this article is for: Users who want to learn to fix issues that have been identified in the SEO Scan with keywords in the Title and Description of the page.

What you'll learn: You'll learn the steps to take to in order to fix issues with the keywords on your page.

 

Note: If you need a refresher on Keywords, please read this helpful article first.

 

This article covers several issues associated with Titles. Click on the issue you're trying to solve to zoom to the most helpful part of the page:

 

Title - Keywords Not Available

This issue is caused by the content within the <title> </title> tags of your doesn't contain an active keyword. You can find the list of active keywords in Keyword Studio under the Active Tab.

 

There are two methods to fix these common issues:

The correct method for you depends on your keyword strategy. We recommend you read both suggestions and then pick the one that is right for you, or use a combination of both.

  • Method 1: Update the Content

  1. Navigate to Titles and Descriptions 
  2. In each section (green box in the above image) you'll be able to add keywords to the title of that type of page. You can do this for all the pages of that type at once. For example, you can correct this error for all of your product pages or collections pages in one go.
  3. If you're comfortable writing liquid code you can switch from Recommended to Custom and update your titles and descriptions with custom liquid code. You can read more about using custom liquid code in Plug In SEO here.
  4. After you've updated your titles and descriptions click save and preview. You should see a preview of your new titles and meta descriptions. 
  5. You will also be able to see these elements updated when you look at the page source on your shop website. 

 

A good page title  clearly conveys the following elements:

  • The name of the product or page,
  • At least one primary keyword / key phrase that describes your website,
  • and includes the name of your website.

For example:

Method 2: Update the Keywords

If your page title includes the elements above but you don't have the keyword listed in your keywords under Keyword Studio > Active then you'll want to add it now by taking the following steps. 

  1. Navigate to Keyword Studio
  2. Ensure that 2 - 3 of the key words and phrases from your title and your meta description tags are included in the list of Active Keywords in the Keyword Studio.
  3. If not, please add the keywords by going to Keyword Studio > Expert Mode

Recheck the page:

Plug in SEO app will then check that you have at least two keywords included in all of the important places for SEO on the page title, meta description, image alt tags, heading, subheadings, and body text.

 

Zero or more than one <title> elements found

Your page should have only one title tag.

A tag consists of an opening and a closing for example, 

<Title>Find cute puppies for sale at cutepuppies.com | Cute Pets Online </Title>

If your page has zero title tags or if your page has more than one title tags this is doing damage to your SEO ranking in search engine results. 

First, ensure that your theme has only one title tag. The title tag should be nested within the <head> </head> tags on your page.

If you don't see any title tags in your theme you can send us an email to ask for our help on how to fix this issue. 

 

Title - Length

The ideal length of your title content is around 70 characters. This is because most search engine results pages (SERPs) will cut off the title after around 70 characters. You should try to use all the space and make sure the first 70 characters make sense and looks good. 

  • If your title length is too short you should add a keyword or keyword phrase. 
  • If your title length is too long you should remove some words or use abbreviations so that the main point of page is clearly communicated within the first 70 characters. 

Title - Default Title Found

This error shows up when a page title is set to one of the common defaults, for example, if the title is "default", "undefined", or "untitled". To fix this issue set up the titles as described in the top section of this page, Title - Keywords Not Available

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