Change Title Tag on SharePoint Sites

The title tag of any page and for this matter of SharePoint public-facing page shows at the top of the browser, in the search engine results and in external websites, especially on social media sites when sharing a page.

I cannot stress enough how important page title is for user experience and for SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Page Title is the most important SEO element, after the page content, and ignoring it you would condemn your website to a sudden SEO death!

With so many SharePoint-based websites submitted to our showcase I couldn’t help notice the amount of SharePoint websites ignoring the basic SEO rule for page title. “Home” in the page title is becoming the norm, especially on the newly released SharePoint sites.

According to the latest SEO standards, the brand name should be the first thing in the page title. A well structured page should display the page title in the following format:

Company Name | Page Title

The Company Name should be static across the whole site. The Page Title can be displayed dynamically using the existing SharePoint PlaceHolderPageTitle.

By writing this short tutorial on how to change the page title on your SharePoint site I hope I will cast some light on this ignored topic of such importance.

There may be other ways to change the Title Tag on SharePoint sites but I find this trick very easy to implement and I’ve used it for quite awhile with good results.

Open your site in SharePoint Designer and click on the Page Layouts under the Site Objects container on the left side. Find the page layout you’re using on your site, right-click on it, Check it out and Edit it in Advanced Mode.

At the top of the page look for the PlaceHolderPageTitle placeholder. Type your company name before the PageTitle FieldValue and you’re done.

<asp:Content ContentPlaceholderID="PlaceHolderPageTitle" runat="server">
        TopSharePoint.com | <SharePointWebControls:FieldValue ID="PageTitle" FieldName="Title" runat="server"/>
asp:Content>

Save the page layout, check it in and approve it. If you are using multiple page layouts make sure you repeat these simple steps on all of them.

Keep in mind that your page title needs to be changed on each individual page from the default Home to a more descriptive title.

There are two ways to do that. By clicking on the Edit button on the ribbon under Page tab to enter the edit mode or by clicking the Edit Properties button.