Issue with Title of Homepage - Wordpress Platform

[MainstreamMktg]

I can't seem to get Google to read the title of my homepage the way I would like it to be read and I have double checked in all areas of my Wordpress Platform where the title may be defaulting and all it set up correctly. I have also ensured that the "force re-write of titles and meta descriptions" have been checked through a plugin I am using to monitor SEO (Yoast)... here is an example of how Google is reading my homepage title:

XYZ Company: Primary Keyword in Ontario Canada - XYZ Company

I would like it to read:

Primary Keyword in Ontario Canada - XYZ Company

But for some reason it keeps pulling in my website title.

I have always re-submitted my URL to Google but no luck with the title change.

If anyone has any insight as to why this is defaulting as such I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I recommend reading Google's resource on this:

"If we’ve detected that a particular result has one of the above issues with its title, we may try to generate an improved title from anchors, on-page text, or other sources. However, sometimes even pages with well-formulated, concise, descriptive titles will end up with different titles in our search results to better indicate their relevance to the query. There’s a simple reason for this: the title tag as specified by a webmaster is limited to being static, fixed regardless of the query. Once we know the user’s query, we can often find alternative text from a page that better explains why that result is relevant. Using this alternative text as a title helps the user, and it also can help your site. Users are scanning for their query terms or other signs of relevance in the results, and a title that is tailored for the query can increase the chances that they will click through." Here are a couple more resources:
Why Google won’t display the right page title (Yoast)
Why Google Changes Your Titles in Search Results (SEW)

Read through all of the above as they have tips and resources to reference to help you.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[donsilvernail]

Make Sure your site Title is edited properly within WordPress. From the left sidebar in your back end select settings---> General then site Title. Do not add anything to the tagline as many themes use this as the title also. Yoast does not let you edit the home page title through the plugin unless you are using a static home page.

If that is the case you must go to Settings ---> Reading then select the page you want as your static page. This means the page must already be created. If you do it this way you can use the Yoast meta boxes to insert your title.

[ClaytonJ]

The boys above have detailed the more technical aspects - the common issue is the length of the title.  1 pixel over 512 pixels and the title truncates as you have described above.  I have seen it truncate as you have described from 487 pixels.

I tested your example and that is 580 pixels. XYZ Company: Primary Keyword in Ontario Canada - XYZ Company

Hence on your example to reduce the pixel width and also for a better CTR I also recommend you use the pipe | and not the hyphen -. Plus you may need to extract Canada etc.

So confirming have you checked the Title is 512 pixels or less?  If still truncating test 487 pixels to be safe. I built my own title tester given it is such a common issue so I could measure the pixels https://www.predikkta.com/products/free-serp-optimizer-tool.html

Hope it is as simple as outlined above.   I add it is worth getting right as it has a strong influence on CTR.