What 3,000 Title Tag Tests Revealed

We ran controlled experiments on title tags for an ecommerce site with 3,000+ product pages between June and November this year. The goal was simple: figure out what actually moves the needle for click-through rates and rankings.

First finding: keyword position mattered less than we expected. Moving the primary keyword from position one to position three only changed CTR by 0.8% on average. What did matter was specificity. "Men's Waterproof Hiking Boots" performed 23% better than "Hiking Boots for Men" despite identical keyword coverage.

Brand name placement had the biggest impact. Adding the brand name at the end of titles increased CTR by 14% for products priced above $200, but decreased it by 6% for items under $50. Users apparently trust brands more for expensive purchases but want generic options for cheaper items.

The weirdest result involved title length. Titles between 52-58 characters consistently outperformed both shorter and longer versions, but only for categories with high commercial intent. Informational queries showed no pattern.

Google also rewarded consistency. Categories where all titles followed the same structure ranked higher collectively than mixed approaches.