I was going about my regular morning on the internet, as you do, and I found this example of a constant problem I see – the difference between how a content creator (company or organization) will name something, vs. how a user will search for it. What comes to your mind when you see:
Availability Guide
If you’re like me, you probably make this face:
To be fair, in search results the full page title is: Availability guide | Foodland Ontario
But on the page itself, while the logo informs that name, the page title is divorced from that sole indicator as to what this page is about.
Here’s my point. I actually really like this page overall. It is slick, appropriately uses a hero image (what a wonder!), minimal text and an appropriate graphic to easily show what foods are in season when (which is what “Availability Guide” apparently means). And this page does appear readily in Google results even though I search something completely different each time I want to get to this page. But why make it more difficult than it needs to be?
This title reeks of multiple approval levels. I would love to see what search results actually drive people to the page, but I suspect it would be something like “What foods are in season” or “is X in season”. Changing the page title to “What Foods Are In Season In Ontario” or even “What’s In Season: Ontario Food Availability Guide” something similar that was (and this is the crucial part) informed by the search queries people are using, it would simply this page and drive additional search results with minimal effort.
Keep it simple – if you can’t tell what the page is about from your page title, your page title needs work. If your page title doesn’t consider how the user will be looking for this information, your page title needs work.
Now back to my grocery planning!