Every once in a while I get a customer who thinks their title tag and meta description on their website IS SEO (search engine optimization). Optimizing your title title and description is a part of SEO, but it’s so much more than that.
There are plenty of other important ranking signals, over 200 in fact, that Google considers when ranking a result. However, creating a properly optimized title tag and meta description is important for communicating your value to customers and prospects. Having a well-written page title and description is critical to get visitors to click on your listing in the SERP (search engine results page).
What is a Title Tag and Description?
A title tag/meta title is your result’s page title. A meta description is the short description that appears below your meta title on a results page.
It looks like this:
The better optimized your title tag and meta description are, the better chance you’ll have for your result to rank higher.
I know this is obvious, but your page title and description actually need to directly relate to what your result is about. And try to be as descriptive and enticing as possible. Your meta title and meta description are what will “persuade” a searcher to click on your result over someone else’s. Use this space to interest a searcher is what you have to say or offer, create urgency, use emotion, and include your ranking keyword phrase too!
Now, Google search results allow around 158 characters in a meta description on a desktop screen and around 120 characters on a mobile device. That isn’t much space, so you need to make it count as much as possible.
Here are some tips to help you optimize your title tag and meta description:
Tips to Optimize your Title Tag and Meta Description
A properly optimized title tag and meta description is what will ultimately convince a searcher to click on your result, so this isn’t something you can just gloss over. While there’s no one “winning formula” to create the best visual result in a SERP, there are definitely best practices you can follow.
Next time you’re creating a page description and title, make sure to use the following optimization tips:
1. Include your keyword phrase in your title and description
2. Don’t make your meta title too long
3. Include numbers, statistics, questions, and emotion in your title and description
4. Use all your character space in the description
5. Always create a unique and original title and description
You want your result to stand out as much as possible in a SERP, and paying special attention to how your meta title and description appear is the best way to do that!
Pro Tip: If you have a WordPress website, I highly recommend downloading the Yoast SEO plugin for your website content!
This plugin will help monitor everything about a web page from the length of the title to the number of times you included your keyword phrase in your page content. It also provides an easy ranking score for each section of your page anatomy, so you can see what sections need more work.
If your site has been active for a number of years, it’s possible you’ll have dozens of pages with duplicate meta descriptions or sub-par meta titles. As with anything, you have to spend your time wisely. Yoast’s web page plugin will allow you to save time and energy moving forward as you work to optimize older pages and create new ones.
In Conclusion
Creating and optimizing title tags and meta descriptions can be a daunting task, but that doesn’t mean you can just overlook it. Your Cazbah Internet Marketing Consultant (IMC) will work with you to make sure you don’t have duplicate meta information on your site. Take a look at the tips above so you can get a head start on creating unique meta descriptions and titles for your web pages today!