Title tags for small teams

The version of this that works is simpler than the version most people imagine. Most advice about title tags assumes a team that does not exist at your size. Here is the version that does not.

Technical fixes remove obstacles; content earns the position. Both are needed and they are not interchangeable. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

What to keep

The title is the biggest on-page signal you fully control. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. Anything you cannot measure here, you are deciding by taste, which is fine as long as everyone knows it.

What to drop

Process that exists to coordinate ten people is overhead when there are two of you. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions.

How we handle it

Duplicate titles across pages waste the opportunity. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. The version that survives contact with a real deadline is the simple one.

What this looks like day to day

Search engines are trying to answer a question, so the pages that answer questions clearly tend to do well. Three things worth confirming about title tags before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Duplicate titles across pages waste the opportunity — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Most of the value here comes from doing the first two things, not all of them.