Write meta titles for a local business with the service and town first, about 50 to 60 characters, and a different title on every page. The formula is keyword first, then one helpful detail about the page, then the brand where it fits, with the service and town as the keyword. When IvI SEO rewrote titles for a UK life sciences company, not a local business, 80 of its first 103 priority pages had their keyword in the title, up from 40.
What a meta title is
- Also called: Meta title, title tag and SEO title are one thing: one page's title on a business's website.
- The blue link: In Google's UK results, as of October 2026, a meta title usually becomes the clickable blue link, which Google can cut to fit the screen or swap for other text.
- Not the profile name: A meta title isn't the Google Business Profile name, which can't take a town unless the town is in the real name.
- Where you set it: On WordPress, the meta title goes in the "SEO title" box in Yoast SEO.
The formula
- Where it comes from: The keyword-first formula comes from the brief IvI SEO wrote for an AI rewrite of a UK life sciences site's meta titles, and on a local page its "brand" is simply the business name.
- A made-up plumber: "Boiler Repair Harrogate | Same-Day Callouts | Smith Plumbing" is a made-up title that follows the formula at exactly 60 characters.
- A made-up homepage, service page and area page: For Oakline Tree Care, a made-up tree surgeon in Exeter, the homepage could be "Tree Surgeon in Exeter | Oakline Tree Care" (42 characters), a service page "Stump Grinding Exeter | Site Left Clean | Oakline Tree Care" (59) and an area page "Tree Surgeon in Exmouth | Felling and Pruning" (45).
- Title and description: The meta description sits under the title in Google and should say something the title didn't, as covered in the meta descriptions post.
The four parts of a local title
A made-up service page title for Oakline Tree Care, a made-up tree surgeon in Exeter
Stump Grinding Exeter | Site Left Clean | Oakline Tree Care
- 1
Service
Stump Grinding
- 2
Town
Exeter
- 3
One helpful detail
Site Left Clean
- 4
Business name (where it fits)
Oakline Tree Care
Made up. 59 characters.
The steps
- Service first: Start a local meta title with the service in the words a customer would type, such as "Stump Grinding", not an in-house label like "Arboricultural Solutions".
- Then the town: Put the town the page is for straight after the service, then check the page itself actually mentions that town.
- A detail or the name: Fill any space left with the business name or one detail taken from the page, and check the page really says it.
- About 50 to 60 characters: Count each finished title, and if one runs well past 60, trim the detail or the name before you touch the service or the town.
- A different title on every page: Put every page's title in one list before anything goes live and check no two match, homepage included.
- One service, one town: Stop at one service and one town per title, so a stump grinding page in Exeter doesn't also squeeze in hedge trimming and Topsham.
Why it matters
- The click: In Google's words, a page's title link is "often the primary piece of information people use to decide which result to click".
How long should a meta title be?
A meta title should be about 50 to 60 characters as a guide, because Google cuts long titles by screen width, not by character count. There's no published limit on how long a meta title can be. Treat around 600 pixels on desktop as the ceiling, with the service and town at the front, so a cut only costs the detail or the business name. IvI SEO's titles for a York electrician run from 40 to 63 characters, with 76 of the 77 at 60 or under and the homepage, at 63, the only one over.
- Screen width: How much of a meta title shows depends on the width of the device, so check a long title on a phone as well as on a desktop.
- Wide and narrow letters: A title full of wide letters such as M and W runs out of room before one full of i and l, so a character count is only ever a rough guide.
- Most important first: A long title loses its end first, so in the made-up "Emergency Tree Surgeon in Exeter | Storm Damage Cleared | Oakline Tree Care" (75 characters) it's the business name that would be cut first, not "Emergency Tree Surgeon in Exeter".
- Separators: A hyphen, colon or pipe all work between the parts of a meta title, and IvI SEO sticks to pipes, as in the Smith Plumbing title.
- Check it: A pixel preview tool (it shows a title as it would look in the results) or a site crawl (a tool that visits every page and lists its title and length) measures a title properly. Your eye is no good for it, and an AI is bad at counting characters.
- Example: On the life sciences site, one blog title stayed at 70 characters because it fitted on screen by width and its bold comparison was the whole reason anyone would click.
- Limit: On the York site only characters were counted, nothing in pixels, so I can't call the 63-character homepage title a fit or a miss, and I'm not going to guess.
Where a long title gets cut
A made-up 75-character title in a search result
Oakline Tree Care
Emergency Tree Surgeon in Exeter | Storm Damage Cleared | …
- ShowsEmergency Tree Surgeon in Exeter
- ShowsStorm Damage Cleared
- Cut firstOakline Tree Care
Made up, and an illustration, not a measurement: the exact cut depends on the device's width and the letters.
That 70-character title is the honest bit. The 60 is a habit, not a law, and a title with a hook worth keeping can earn its extra length. A title over 60 characters needs a reason for being there, and three towns and a slogan isn't one.
Fifty-odd characters fill up fast, and the town is the first thing that has to earn its place.
Should every meta title include your town?
Yes, for most local businesses every meta title should name one town, because the town tells a nearby searcher the page is for their area. For a business based in one town, the homepage and the service pages both carry its main town, even though some advice keeps service pages free of any town. Each area page, meaning a page for another town the business covers, names that town in its title, and no title lists several towns or says "near me". On a York electrician's site, IvI SEO gave all 77 titles exactly one town each, either the main town or the area page's own.
- Homepage: A homepage title carries the business's main town, the way Oakline Tree Care's made-up homepage title under the intro carries Exeter.
- Service pages: A one-town business's service page says "Stump Grinding Exeter", not plain "Stump Grinding", which could belong to any tree surgeon in the country, and that's where IvI SEO parts company with the town-free advice.
- Area pages: An area page names its own town and leaves the main town out, so the made-up Exmouth page under the intro doesn't drag Exeter along with it.
- Never a list of towns: A made-up title such as "Tree Surgeon Exeter, Exmouth, Topsham, Crediton" reads like keyword stuffing, not a page anyone wants to land on.
- No "near me": A real town goes where "near me" was heading, because "Tree Surgeon Near Me" tells a reader nothing about where the business actually works.
- The page backs it up: A town in the title needs a page with something real to say about that town, because three near-identical pages with a different town name swapped in aren't useful to anyone.
One town per page
Made-up titles for Oakline Tree Care, with the town marked in each
Homepage
Tree Surgeon in Exeter | Oakline Tree Care
42 characters
Service page
Stump Grinding Exeter | Site Left Clean | Oakline Tree Care
59 characters
Area page
Tree Surgeon in Exmouth | Felling and Pruning
45 characters
A list of towns
Tree Surgeon Exeter, Exmouth, Topsham, Crediton
All made up.
One limit, said plainly: all of this is for a business based in one town. A business with branches in several towns is a different setup, and I won't pretend one rule covers both.
With the service and the town in, the next question is whether your name still fits.
Should your business name go in your meta title?
Yes, most local businesses should put their business name in their homepage's meta title, and elsewhere only if there's room, because Google already shows the site name with each result. A site name covers the whole site, separate from each page's title link, which is the clickable headline for that one page. On the homepage the business name goes after the service and the town, while on service and area pages a true detail about the page can take its place. Of the 77 titles in IvI SEO's work for a York electrician, the business name is on 15, and the other 62 use that space for a detail about the page instead.
- Homepage: Oakline Tree Care's made-up homepage title, with the name last, still only runs to 42 characters, so a homepage rarely has to choose between the name and the town.
- Why the homepage: Google's site-name system also reads a homepage's title, along with its headings and structured data (code that labels a business's details for search engines), so the business name there does a second job.
- Service and area pages: The made-up stump grinding title fits its name at 59 characters, but adding " | Oakline Tree Care" to the Exmouth title would take it from 45 to 65, past the guide, so there the detail stays and the name goes.
- Only true details: A detail such as "same-week visits" goes in a title only if the business really does it, because invented claims are out in a title just as in a meta description.
- York, by page type only: On the York electrician's site, the 15 titles with the name belong to the homepage, the services overview, the about and contact pages, the area pages and the commercial pages, and not one of the 77 starts with the name.
Picture someone in Exmouth with a storm-split tree leaning over the shed. "Felling and Pruning" answers their question. "Oakline Tree Care" doesn't, not yet. The name can wait for the homepage.
Once there's a pattern, though, it's tempting to paste one title onto every page.
Can two pages have the same meta title?
No two pages on a site should have the same meta title, because searchers can't tell them apart and Google may show other text instead. On a local business's site, what sets one page apart from another is usually the service or the town the page is for, which gives each title its own words. Each page needs distinct text in its title describing what's on that page, rather than the same wording used on page after page.
- Theme defaults: A theme or plugin default such as "Home | Oakline Tree Care" (made up) can end up on every page, and "Home" is too vague to describe any page anyway.
- Cloned pages: A page copied to make a new service or town page keeps the old page's title until someone changes it.
- WordPress extras: On WordPress, archive, tag and page-2 pages can all pick up the same title as each other.
- Finding them: A site crawl lists every duplicate title on a site in minutes.
- The fix: Each duplicate gets its own new title, unless it's really one page at two addresses, in which case you fix the address, not the title.
- Boilerplate: Long titles that vary by only a single piece of information count as boilerplate too.
- York, as plain fact: All 77 titles on a York electrician's site are different from each other.
Nobody sets out to give every page the same title. It happens one copied page at a time.
Even a unique title isn't always the one Google shows.
Why does Google change your meta title?
Google changes your meta title in search results when it decides the title doesn't describe the page well, for example because it's half empty, out of date or repeated. The text Google shows instead can come from the page's main heading, other large text on the page, or the words other pages use when linking to the page. What you control is a complete, accurate meta title that's different on every page, plus one clear main heading telling the same story. A fixed title can only appear once Google has revisited the page and processed the change, which can take a few days to a few weeks.
- Half-empty titles: A half-empty title is just the name, such as "| Oakline Tree Care" (made up).
- Out-of-date titles: An out-of-date title still advertises an offer or prices from last year (a made-up case, but an easy one to picture).
- Inaccurate titles: An inaccurate title promises a service the page doesn't cover, such as stump grinding in the title of a page that's only about hedge trimming.
- Repeated titles: A repeated title is one title used across a whole set of pages.
- No clear main heading: A page with no clear main heading has nothing that stands out as its main title.
- Keyword stuffing: A stuffed title repeats the same words over and over, like the made-up "Tree Surgeon Exeter Tree Surgeons Exeter Tree Surgery".
A few more points on keeping the title you wrote:
- Title and main heading: A page's meta title and its H1 (the page's main heading) needn't match word for word, so an H1 of "Stump Grinding in Exeter" sits happily alongside Oakline's made-up stump grinding title.
- Rewriting everything isn't the fix: When Google changes your titles, letting AI rewrite every meta title isn't the answer, because IvI SEO's rule is augment, don't replace: keep what already works and only change what breaks the rules.
- Rankings and clicks: Whether the life sciences rewrite brought more clicks won't be known until its comparison in December 2026, and until then I'm not claiming a ranking or click effect either way.
Look at that first list again. Most of it is housekeeping, not clever writing.
If checking every page title sounds like a job for someone else, here's the choice.
Want your page titles checked?
You can get your page titles checked by someone else or check them yourself with a site crawl, which lists every title, its length and any repeats. Checking and rewriting page titles is part of IvI SEO's local SEO service. Whichever you choose, every title faces the same four tests: service and town first, about 50 to 60 characters as a guide, one town, and no repeats across pages. Even a perfect set of titles can't promise higher rankings or more clicks. Checking your own titles is a perfectly sound choice if you have the time.
The free route is a crawl and an afternoon. Export the list of titles, then work through it page by page against the steps under the intro, fixing as you go. (Handing over the whole checklist before the sales bit. Business genius, me.)
The other route: with IvI SEO, every title on your site gets checked against those same rules alongside the rest of your local SEO, and the ones that fail get rewritten. The only real difference is whose afternoon it is.
If you'd rather hand it over, here's IvI SEO's local SEO service.
No rush either way.