Title Tags & Keyword Order

[BeckyKey]

Hi

I've read various articles on this - some saying it's still important to have the keyword at the beginning of the title and some saying it's not a big factor anymore?

Does anyone have an opinion on this?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Becky,

The most important factor here, is to ensure it makes sense. If you can get the main keywords towards the front, all well and good, but if you can't don't try and write it to fit because that then can impact CTR and you will end up driving people away.

The title and description should make sense to the page in question.

-Andy

[BeckyKey]

Hi

Thanks Andy, I thought as much but you read conflicting information

[Andy.Drinkwater]

You do indeed - and so much is out of date.

Always good to post here in Moz to see the state of play

-Andy

[BlueCorona]

I've been hearing this question more and more often as of late. Here's the basic information on Title Tag construction, as provided by Moz: https://moz.com/learn/seo/title-tag

Moz suggests: Primary Keyword - Secondary Keyword | Brand Name. Moz also mentions that since Google only displays the first 50 or so characters of your title tag, it's imperative to get your keyword in those first 50 characters so users are able to see them in the search results when the title tag is displayed.

In fact, if you scroll down on the page, you'll see that Moz specifically suggests placing important keywords close to the front of the title tag, citing: "According to Moz's testing and experience, the closer to the start of the title tag a keyword is, the more helpful it will be for ranking—and the more likely a user will be to click them in search results."

I hope this is helpful!