Shortening Titles

[royRR]

Have a ecommerce site using woocommerce. Most product titles contain the information needed for the product. I have shorten the title as much as possible but;

Most of the titles are about 18-19 characters over 70 characters the recommended max. I have removed all possible characters from the title but I could remove the site name - this would get it down by about 18 characters - meaning most titles would then be just under the 70 characters recommended.

Would removing the site name from the title of all the products be a bigger problem than good?

[DougRoberts]

If you've got a reputable brand then having the site name/brand appended to the titles can help get click-throughs from the search results.

If you're appending the site/brand name to the end of the titles then these are just being cut off anyway so you won't be getting this benefit.

Hacking  away at a title to get it under the recommended limit, and get your brand/site name in there risks leaving searchers looking at a meaningless, overly abbreviated and confusing title - which I'd say is a bigger problem than not including your site name. (Your domain is displayed in the search results too.)

Your titles have got to give searchers confidence that they're going to find the information/products/services they're looking for if they were to click on your site. What can you do to make these as compelling as possible?

[royRR]

Thanks for the reply Doug. Yes, currently the site name is getting cut off anyway. I want the title to appear in the search engine without having this: "..." half way thru, as it makes the tittle looks a little messy.

The site name is in the domain name which is clear for people to see. I could always add the site name into the meta description.

What do you think about doing that?

[DougRoberts]

What do your customers care about?

It's harsh, but take a deep breath and ask yourself if your site name/brand really matters.(Remember those loyal customers will probably be going directly to your site or via a branded search rather than a search for individual products)

What's more attractive - "Dave's Widgets" or "Fast, reliable delivery..."

The rules are obviously different if you're a big brand with a widely recognised USP.

If you include the site name in the meta descriptions are you going to be losing space that you could be using to sell the product/value proposition/benefits?

If you do feel the site name is important, is this something you can test before you go ahead and make a site-wide change? (Evidence is better than opinion!)