How to Set Your Title Tag Structure

The Thesis title tag constructor (located on the Thesis Options page) allows you to control the structure of your <title> tags by setting a few simple options. The available options are best illustrated by example, so let’s assume we’ve got a fictitious site called “Bob’s Widgets” with a tagline that reads “It’s a Widget, You Idjit!”

If you select only “show site name in title,” you’ll end up with the following title on your home page:

Bob's Widgets

Alternatively, if you select only “show site tagline in title,” your home page title will look like this:

It's a Widget, You Idjit!

If you elect to show both the site name and the tagline, a new checkbox will appear with the option to show the tagline before the site name. It doesn’t really matter which order you choose here, but those of you who are really into keyword optimization may find it useful to show the tagline before the site name (so you can change up keywords more easily while placing them in the most valuable SEO location on the page).

Anyway, for the purposes of our example, let’s say that Bob is, in fact, heavy into keyword optimization, and he’s chosen to show his tagline before his site name. His title tag options look like Figure 1 above, and his home page title tag now looks like this:

It's a Widget, You Idjit! — Bob's Widgets

No matter which options you choose for the home page, all of your post and page title tags will consist of the title of that particular post or page. You can, however, choose to append your site’s name to the end of your post and page title tags. For instance, if Bob elected to “append site name to page titles,” his “About” page would have a title tag like this:

About — Bob's Widgets

If, instead, Bob chose not to “append site name to page titles,” his “About” page title tag would have been, simply:

About