Getting Started
Page titles and meta descriptions are two of the most important areas of SEO you will need to get right, if your web page is to rank well in the search engine results. You will need to get your keywords into both the page title and the meta description, but keep the length of each within prescribed limits.
In the bad old days, people would stuff their page titles and meta descriptions with keywords in an unnatural way. Google caught onto this and its algorithms now penalise websites which use keyword stuffing. Your page titles and meta descriptions should be written with natural language which appeal to real human beings, not search engine spiders!
Before getting going with your page titles and meta descriptions, think about what message you want to get across to your potential audience. Using your business's uniqueness or a scarcity can improve the performance of the title or description, for example.
Where Are My Page Titles and Meta Descriptions?
Your page titles and meta descriptions are both sometimes known as meta data. The page title is rendered both visibly and invisibly, whilst the meta description only appears as the description in the search results. In the screenshot below, we can see how the page title is always displayed in the web browser's tab.
When we look at Google's (or any other search engine) search results, we can see how they use the page title and meta description. Be aware though that although you can set your titles and descriptions, Google does sometimes ignore what you set and uses their own page titles and meta descriptions scraped from the page's content.
What Are Page Titles?
Page titles are the line of blue hyperlink you see in the Google search results. Clicking on this hyperlink will take you to the web page. The page title will usually include your business name and your most important keywords for the web page being shown in the search results.
As a general rule, page titles should be less than 60 characters long. The true maximum length of a page title on Google is up to 600 pixels long. Due to the different pixel sizes of each letter in your title, it is impossible to place an exact character length on a page title. For example, a capital 'W' uses far more pixels in its width than a lowercase 'i'.
The best rule of thumb is to try to keep your page titles to between 50-60 characters long and over 30 charcters as a minimum. If your page title exceeds the 600 pixel limit, Google will crop it and use an ellipsis (...), which further shortens the visible title.
Page titles are HTML elements which tell web browsers and search engines what the element is. The title you give the page is wrapped in title tags. Using the screenshot below, the page title appears like this is HTML:
<title>Cotswold Websites | Gloucestershire Web Design | WordPress</title>
What Are Meta Descriptions?
Meta descriptions are descriptions of your web page which are only visible in the page's HTML markup and rendered by the search engines in their page descriptions. Meta descriptions sit directly below the Page Title in the search results and build upon the title to give searchers a snapshot of what your page is about.
Similar to Page Titles, the above meta description is rendered in HTML as:
<meta name="description" content="Cotswold Websites - a Gloucestershire web design agency in the Cotwolds offering responsive web design / mobile friendly WordPress websites." />
Well written meta descriptions are key to making your page stand out in search results for your potential visitors. It is therefore well worth taking the time and effort to write killer meta descriptions for every page and post on your website.
Similar to page titles, you are limited to the length of the meta description. Descriptions will usually be truncated by Google at somewhere around 155 to 160 characters and the ellipsis (...) will be inserted, cutting out several more of teh characters at the end of your description.
As with everything to do with search engine optimisation (SEO), you may need to tweak your meta descriptions over time for your important pages, if your search ranking position drops. Your competitors will be doing the same to improve their rankings.
How Are Page Titles & Meta Descriptions Used?
Most people think of the page title and meta description are just being used for the listings of search results. Whilst they are being primarily used for this purpose, you may have noticed other results on the search results page, but had not realised these are displayed as a result of the page title and meta description, together with an array of mind-boggling Google algorithm outputs.
Featured Snippets
Featured snippets are THE thing everyone would love to have their page shown for, though there are theoretical downsides too. Featured snippets typically show the results to questions where the answer is chosen by Google as being the most relevant. It is also a way to provide information at a glance. The downside to featured snippets is that searchers may not click through to your website as they can already see the results they are looking for.
In the below example, we have searched for "what is the best holiday destination". Unsurprisingly, the featured snippet comes from the global holiday company Kuoni.
To have a chance of getting your page as a featured snippet, your page title and meta description - as well as the page's content - must be perfectly optimised. So, get your page title and meta description right and then write simple, informative and authoritative page content.
General Search Results
General search results is where most of your pages will show up. Google's algorithms will use many different aspects to choose the order in which the results will display. Your aim is to get your page to the top of page one, where possible. General search results are shown with the classic blue hyperlink on the page title with the meta description below. The searcher will usually click on the top result to find what they are looking for.
The general Google search results may also show other results, including Rich Snippets (see above), Knowledge Graphs, image results, video results, shopping results, or a load of other types of results.
The below screenshot shows you many of the different search result types crammed into the top of the results page. You can see a Featured Snippet, Knowledge Graph, image results as well as general search results. Further down the page are video results and more.
How Can You Optimise Your Page Titles & Meta Descriptions?
Research is key to writing your page titles and meta descriptions well. Before you write them, stop and think about how you expect your visitors to search for the content on your page. Then go ahead and make that same search yourself. See what shows in the results. Do you see your main competitors listed? Are there featured snippets showing? Are there local results present? Are the search results showing informational results or results with commercial intent?
If you are not seeing the type of search results you were expecting to see, you probably need to do more keyword research to find the real terms that people are searching for.
Search Optimisation
You need to understand what search intent your audience is likely to have for every page of your website. If you can optimise each page for the correct search intent, you are off to a head start.
There are four primary types of search you are likely to see:
- Informational
- Commercial
- Transactional
- Navigation
An informational search is where the searcher is looking for information about a specific topic. It could be a service, product, business, etc.. In our example, the searcher is trying to discover which 4x4 is going to be the best suited to both on-road and off-road driving, so they can potentially make a further search with commercial intent, once their research is done.
"What is the best 4x4 for a combination of road and off-road use?"
A commercial search is a search where the searcher is looking to for a product or service within a specific budget, or looking for the best value product or service to the searcher's mind with the intent to possibly buy or order. In this example, teh searcher has identified the Toyota Land Cruiser and the Land Rover Defender as their preferred choice, but wants to narrow the choice down to the choice of best value to them.
"Am I better spending my budget of £20,000 on a used Toyota Land Cruiser or a used Land Rover Defender?"
A transactional search is where the searcher intends to buy or order what they are searching for. In the below example, the searcher is looking to buy a Toyota Land Cruiser somewhere near Cheltenham for below their maximum budget of £20,000.
"Used Toyota Land Cruiser under £20,000 in Cheltenham"
A navigational search is where the searcher wants to go to a specific destination. In the case of this example, the searcher wants to find the official Toyota page for their Land Cruiser.
"Toyota Land Cruiser"
When researching and optimising your page titles and meta data, try to have in mind words which denot either informational, commercial, transactional or navigational searches.
Emotion & Need
Page titles and meta descriptions can sometimes benefit if you appeal to your searcher's needs. With humans being emotional creatures, we often act on impulse when making purchases or looking for information. Therefore, inserting words which feed these emotions can prove to be valuable in encouraging searchers to click your search result.
Words which fit the emotion and need method include:
- Guaranteed
- Learn
- Save
- Best
- Offer ends....
- Last chance
- Free
- Advanced
- Join
- Download
- Risk-free
The general Google search results may also show other results, including Rich Snippets (see above), Knowledge Graphs, image results, video results, shopping results, or a load of other types of results.
The below screenshot shows you many of the different search result types crammed into the top of the results page. You can see a Rich Snippet, Knowledge Graph, image results as well as general search results. Further down the page are video results and more.
Your Page Titles & Meta Descriptions Need To Be Unique
A huge mistake made by many people or businesses running their own websites without an experienced SEO person is to repeat page titles and meta descriptions. This can go as far as allowing the global settings to take this task over, meaning duplicate titles and descriptions on every page!
With a small website it is easy to keep track of your page titles and meta descriptions. However, when you start to have a website with 20+ pages and posts, up into the hundreds or even thousands, the task becomes much harder. Now is the time to keep track of your titles and descriptions in a managed way.
One of the best tools to keep an eye of page titles and meta descriptions is Screaming Frog. This tool crawls through your chosen URL and provides a wealth of data you can use. Amongst other things, there are tabs where a grid of your page titles or meta descriptions is output. You can copy the results to a spreadsheet to review offline.
Top Tip!
You can quickly set-up your spreadsheet to count the number of characters in your titles or descriptions. the formula is: LEN(cell_number), so if your page title is in cell C3 of your spreadsheet, enter the formula LEN(C3) into cell D3. Cell D3 will then display the cumber of characters in your page title shown in cell C3!
Unique Page Title Keywords
Every page title should be both unique and include your keywords. Furthermore, it is generally recognised as being better if your keywords are at the beginning, or at least in the first half of the page title.
Let's take an example and look at an artisan baker's website. They may have several separate pages for bread, including a category page. The category page may have a title which includes the keywords "Freshly Baked Artisan Bread". Other pages may be dedicated to bloomers, baguettes or ciabattas. We don't want to copy the category page's title, so the other pages could use keywords like the below in their titles:
- "Crusty White Bread Bloomer"
- "Traditional Artisan French Baguette"
- "Handmade Italian Ciabatta Rolls"
Each of these keywords are phrases bread-lovers are likely to search for
Using Your Brand Name In The Page Title
People often ask us if we should include your brand name in the page title. We believe that the answer is, unless you are a very well brand name, try to include it at the end of the page title, separated by a pipe symbol (|), hyphen (-) or forward slash (/). If you have a long business name, this gives you the awkward decision of how and when to include it. Those businesses with short brand names can make easy use of of it in the page title!
Natural English, Not Keyword Stuffing
It goes without saying that your true audience is made up of human beings, not search engine spiders and robots. Therefore, write your page titles so they mean something to a person. Trying to trick Google's search algorithms with loads of keywords will get you nowhere. They are trained to look for natural English as much as the human brain is.
Use your page titles to represent your page's purpose with a succinct summary of the page itself, using the best keywords in the process. Read back the page title to yourself or get a colleague to read it too. Does it sound and feel natural? If yes, great! If not, revise the page title till you have nailed it.
Unique Page Description Keywords
Now that you have perfected your page titles, it is time to do the same for your meta descriptions.
Meta descriptions can be awkward to write. They certainly take up plenty of time to put together. The length available to you (155 to 160 characters) means that you need to craft a concise and targeted description which uses your keywords naturally, but effectively.
Key to your meta description is to include your keywords, ideally towards the start of the description, and to include your emotional or need words (see above).
Most important, make sure your copy is written for humans, not search engines. If your text is snappy, engaging and prioritises your keywords, emotional and need words, you will have the best chance of success in reaching the top spots of the search results.
Keeping An Eye On Your Page Titles & Meta Descriptions
Once you have created or edited your page titles and meta descriptions, it is time to put them into action - and keep a close eye on them.
First of all, you will submit, or re-submit, each page to Google through your Google Search Console. A combination of Search Console and Google Analytics will give you an idea of how your changes are performing. Hopefully your changes have been well crafted and you will be seeing an upturn in traffic and conversions.
If there is a downturn in your traffic, the obvious first step is to revert to the previous version of your page titles and meta descriptions (you will, of course have kept a copy!). This is the time to analyse why there has been a downturn, which may involve keyword research, competitor research and other methods.
Do always remember, lasting SEO changes can take weeks and months to take effect. These things are never instant.
One of our clients works in a highly competitive sector. His business was invisible in the search results before we started an SEO campaign for him - and for many months - equity release financial services. However, now, some three years on, one of his three website ranks high on page on of Google for his primary keyword ("equity release london"). The other two websites are in the top three positions of page 2.
This example shows that even very modest local businesses can truely rank at the top even when competing against the giant of the sector!
You too can rank at the top of the search results with clear and expert concentration on your page titles and meta descriptions.
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