Join us in Dallas for LocalU
October 20, 2026 - Just $299
How Insanely Long Title Tags Help You Rank Better on Google
Most SEO tools scream at you to keep title tags short, ideally under 60 characters. But we have found that this is advice that you should ignore. I have seen over and over that long title tags, even ones that go over 200 characters, can actually improve rankings.
I want to give credit where it’s due. This tactic isn’t my invention; I learned it from Joel Headley, a former Google employee, who shared this concept during a presentation at a LocalU event.
Joel ran a test with thousands of healthcare websites, injecting neighborhood names into title tags. The result was a 15% increase in visibility on Google. That’s not a small jump – it means these sites ranked for more queries and gained significant traffic.
Why Long Title Tags Work
You’ve probably heard that Google cuts off title tags after about 60 characters, adding an ellipsis (…) in search results. Many SEOs treat this as a warning sign, fearing long titles will hurt their rankings. But the fact is, Google still reads the entire title tag, even if it doesn’t display the whole thing in search results. By including more relevant terms, you increase the likelihood of matching multiple search queries, thus boosting your visibility.
This approach is especially effective for local SEO strategies where you need to target multiple geographic modifiers on a single page. We regularly apply long title tags when publishing or optimizing location-based pages, particularly when advising clients on how to create service area page content that can rank for neighborhoods, cities, and surrounding areas without needing dozens of thin pages.
Case Studies: How Long Title Tags Help Google Rankings
Here is an example of a client of ours. This is a page we optimized, and the title tag is 229 characters, way past the “character limit.”
Another example was a personal injury lawyer where we added the target keyword to the title tag, making it a whopping 232 characters long. This resulted in them moving up from position 6 to position 4 for the target keyword we added.
I have so many of these, but I’ll save you the time – they all look similar.
Why SEOs Freak Out
Most SEO tools flag long title tags as a “problem” and issue warnings about readability and click-through rates. Even other SEO professionals might criticize your long title tags, telling you to “fix” them.
But here’s the reality: clients who follow this outdated advice risk losing rankings and traffic. We’ve seen this tactic work time and time again, and I have yet to see evidence that long titles hurt user experience or conversion rates.
Joel Headley famously said, “Don’t fear the ellipsis.” The dot, dot, dot in search results isn’t the problem – it’s an opportunity. You’re still getting credit for the entire title, even if users can’t see all of it.
Won’t This Hurt Click-Through Rates?
Not in our experience. As long as the visible part of the title is compelling, users are unlikely to notice the extra length.
Isn’t This Spammy?
No. You’re not stuffing keywords – you’re strategically expanding your titles to include more relevant information.
Should You Try Long Title Tags?
As long as you care more about traffic and leads than “best practices,” this is a tactic that I would absolutely adopt.
Join us in Dallas for LocalU
Will this work for homepage, service pages, and service area pages as well?
Yes, it works on all page types, as long as the page is locally focused.
Interesting how the title tag for this post is 59 characters long.
Fun Fact: we didn’t do SEO on our site for 7+ years! Now we’re going through some pages and actually working on them. Feel free to check out the one on https://www.sterlingsky.ca/write-google-posts-chat-gpt-prompt/
Can the description tag also provide benefits if made long?
We haven’t seen that a long meta description impacts organic rankings like a long title tag does. Meta descriptions should instead be designed to convert. They may not impact ranking, but they do impact CTR.
Will this work for homepage, service pages, and service area pages as well?
Yes, it works on all page types, as long as the page is locally focused.
Interesting how the title tag for this post is 59 characters long.
Fun Fact: we didn’t do SEO on our site for 7+ years! Now we’re going through some pages and actually working on them. Feel free to check out the one on https://www.sterlingsky.ca/write-google-posts-chat-gpt-prompt/
Can the description tag also provide benefits if made long?
We haven’t seen that a long meta description impacts organic rankings like a long title tag does. Meta descriptions should instead be designed to convert. They may not impact ranking, but they do impact CTR.
Hello there,
did you check if Google actually showed your title tag? Maybe with making it too long you brought Google to rewrite the title tag more often than before and thus saw those results.
Even if Google re-writes your title, they still use the original title you put for ranking purposes. Google confirmed this – https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-still-uses-original-page-titles-for-search-rankings/418920/
Hello there,
did you check if Google actually showed your title tag? Maybe with making it too long you brought Google to rewrite the title tag more often than before and thus saw those results.
Even if Google re-writes your title, they still use the original title you put for ranking purposes. Google confirmed this – https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-still-uses-original-page-titles-for-search-rankings/418920/
Do you typically just add a string of relevant location names separated by commas?
Typically each page on your site is going to have a single location target. So instead of multiple locations, I would focus on multiple related keywords. For example, if you are targeting emergency plumber, you can target related keywords like “emergency plumber near me” and “24/7 plumbing service” on the same page.