Title Tags & Meta Descriptions Explained
Is your website lacking on traffic going towards it? Perhaps it is time to check whether your title tags and meta descriptions are optimised to their full potential. Title tags and meta descriptions can enable you to rank on search engine results pages through keywords of your choosing which relate to your business so that you can be found online. Not only they can assist you in ranking, but also work as a trigger like factor in order to entice users to visit your site rather than one of your competitor’s instead.
Page titles and meta descriptions help you in describing what each specific page on your website actually consists of. If written properly they can act as an extremely useful marketing technique, bringing in 100% free organic traffic towards your website. If you are not yet aware of what titles and descriptions are, below is a guide for you to learn exactly what they are, what their function is and how to properly write them.
Page titles and meta descriptions are incredibly important for your website’s SEO campaign.
What are Title Tags & Meta Descriptions?
Title tags & meta descriptions are different bits of HTML code which can be found across all web pages. They help search engines understand the content of a specific page by providing a brief title and a description of it. Page titles and meta descriptions act as a short summary device which us, users, can benefit from as we decide whether the page listed in a search engine’s index contains the information that will answer our query.
Title Tags
Title Tags are the title element of a specific page in which it summarises the content on the page and what its consists of. Page titles are visible across search engine results pages as the clickable headline for a given result, tabs on your browser and social media platforms.
Title tags are preferred to be within a 50 – 60 character limit so that it can be fully displayed according to Google’s title display format of 600 pixel capacity. If your title is too long, search engines may cut it off by adding an ellipsis (“…”) and could end up omitting important words.
Meta title tags are an incredibly huge factor in regards to helping search engines understand what your page consists of, and they are the first impression all users will have when your website or business is searched.
Your title tags should clearly state what your page’s content is about by using relevant keywords in an organised manner which is easy to read and comprehend. This could mean the point of difference which determines whether a user clicks through onto your site or just simply doesn’t. Furthermore, each and every single page of your website must have a unique title, which further outlines the trustworthiness and relevance of your content, igniting increased amount of click through rates and essentially more leads and sales.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions consist of a short summary of the content displayed on your site in order to give users a better idea of what they are clicking on. Whilst title tags are very limited, meta descriptions allow you to write more, therefore using this summary to attract users into clicking through is a must.
The optimal length for meta descriptions is anywhere from 150 – 165 characters so that it is within Google’s best practices. Meta descriptions are not a ranking factor, however they do heavily influence click through rate from users and this is something Google and other search engines definitely consider when ranking websites in their search results pages.
Meta descriptions must be informative and keyword rich. However it cannot be spammy, full of keywords that do not compose a sentence as it must be reader friendly for users to take an interest in.
It is crucial that when you write meta descriptions, that they relate to your page’s content without giving away too much information. In other words do not kill the interest factor, making them click through to find out more. Ultimately, each description must be unique otherwise it will affect rankings as per Google’s standards.
Conclusion
While title tags and meta descriptions don’t play a direct role in helping your site rank in search engines, they are critical for user engagement and getting users to click through to your website. So don’t ignore them as they’re the only elements standing between a search result and a visitor.