Your | Title | Tags | Are | Embarrassing

If your title tags read like a thesaurus, no wonder no one's clicking. Let’s fix that.

This weeks #SEOForLunch is sponsored by North Star Inbound

Back in 2011, I worked at a large legal marketing agency. We’re talking roughly 100 employees across SEO, paid media, content, dev, and account teams.

With that much headcount, you’d expect best practices to be cutting-edge and constantly evolving.

LOL.

That’s when I was introduced to a concept called “SEO SQUARED.”

It was an “SEO best practice” dreamed up by the company’s top salesperson. Not strategist. Not SEO. Not even a content writer. Sales.

Did I mention sales had 100x the power of anyone doing the actual work?

Sound ridiculous? It’s still happening in 2025

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This week’s #SEOForLunch is sponsored by North Star Inbound.

Turn Your Blog Into Your Biggest Sales Engine

Brought to you by North Star Inbound–the sales enablement SEO agency.
​
​How? Focus on high-impact SEO strategies that target the most profitable opportunities.

North Star Inbound has a proven track record of creating top-converting blog pages that deliver

• thousands of leads,

• hundreds of thousands in directly-attributed revenue,

• and rapid payback periods on SEO spend.

They focus on the 10% of pages with the highest ROI for your brand. Basically, your content becomes your most effective sales tool.

There’s no better way to loosen tight budgets than to grow revenue quickly.

Intrigued?​

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Let’s Talk “SEO Squared”

At this point in my career, I had about two years of SEO under my belt. I felt confident in the fundamentals, but I joined this company because it was stacked with “search professionals.” I figured it would help me answer a lingering question:

“Am I actually good at SEO, or was I just the best in a room of one?”

Getting introduced to SEO Squared was the moment I realized… maybe I was onto something after all.

So WTF is “SEO Squared,” Nick?

I know… I’m dragging it out like our favorite YouTubers extending their videos past 8 minutes to ensure they get those mid-roll ads.

Here’s the magic formula:

Practice Area + Attorney + GEO1 | Practice Area modifier + Lawyer + GEO 2 | Practice Area similarity + GEO3.

So in practice, it looked like this.

“Divorce Attorney Miami | Separation Lawyer Miami Beach | Family Law Florida”

😵‍💫🤢🤮

I was floored. This was considered a best practice, and worse, it was created by a salesperson who knew just enough $5 SEO jargon to close deals.

But here’s the kicker:
You think this is a relic of the past?

Scroll through the SERPs today. We’re still writing title tags that look like this—just with more tools and fancier job titles.

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Just Because You Can | Doesn’t | Mean | You Should!

(character count just below 50, phew!)

It’s been over a decade since I was introduced to “SEO Squared,” and thankfully, most of the industry has moved away from full-on keyword spam in title tags.

Most.

I still managed to dig up a few gems.

They’re not quite as bad as “SEO Squared,” but they’re not good either.

Even my Minnesota Vikings aren’t immune to sloppy title tags!
P.S. Vikings, your title tags need more rhythm. Let’s make them smooth enough to Griddy to! (Let’s talk #skol)

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STOP SEOing and Start Marketing

“But, Nick, you gotta have keywords in the title to rank, duh!”

At least one of you has already rolled your eyes and written me off as a grumpy “old hat SEO”. Cool.

But let’s be real: the people who are still keyword stuffing title tags are the checkbox crowd, yes, those with whom I’ve blasted in the past for having a SEO loser mindset mentality.

Real SEOs?
They study their customers, analyze SERPs, and test the hell out of their title tags.

One of my friends, Abby Gleason, has posted a few solid examples on LinkedIn of exactly that: real testing, not just jamming every modifier she can think of into 60 characters.

+35% clicks and +50% increase in keyword visibility? Yes please!

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How Do I Test Title Tags Anyways?

What a fantastic question. And lucky for you, I’ve got answers.

First, check out this post from seoClarity, where they break down seven simple title tag tests you can run right now:

1. Title Length

2. Keyword Placement

3. Add/Remove Branding

4. Use Negative Superlatives (“worst”/“never”)

5. Include Numbers

6. Include Action Words (like Abby did!)

7. Experiment With Competitors’ PPC Copy

Don’t overthink this. Simply pick one variable, make the change, and measure the outcome.

Want a deeper dive?

Nick Swan, owner of SEOtesting.com, also has a great guide on testing title tags, with examples and case studies that show what’s working (and what’s not).

If you're unsure how to structure a test, collect data, or make sense of the results, this guide is the resource you want to read next.

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Marketing is the future, not stuffing your face Google

Harry Clarkson-Bennett recently wrote a great piece on why SEOs need to be more commercially minded. And he’s right.

Too many of us have become so obsessed with tactics, tools, and templates that we’ve forgotten who we’re optimizing for: humans.

That’s how we got here, mindless zombies to checkboxes, SOPs, and outdated “best practices.”

Want to level up your SEO career?
Push boundaries. Stop blindly following advice. And for the love of all things organic performance, TEST!

If AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and all the other “robots coming for our jobs” have taught us anything, it’s this:

• Critical thinking wins.

• Checkbox SEO dies.

If we’re being honest, rankings and CTR were never the entire picture, and now, they’re barely half the game.

Real SEO goes beyond the SERP.

It starts with your title tags.
It extends to your content.
It bleeds into your UX, your brand, and your product/service.

Someone out there is already thinking: “This isn’t SEO work.”

I disagree. Completely.

You rank #1 in Google’s AIO? Cool. How dem clicks treating ya?

Organic growth has never been limited to Google’s search bar.
We’re just finally being forced to admit it.

Google showed us their hand.

Now the question is, what are you going to do next?

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If your title tag includes more than three pipes, your SEO license should be revoked.

~ Nick