Every web page contains two pieces of HTML code called page titles and meta descriptions. Similar to the title and blurb on the front and back of a book, they display the title of the web page and its description. Before you open the book (or page), they explain its subject (or click the link).
Internet users can use page titles and meta descriptions as a quick summary tool to determine whether a page found in a search engine’s index includes the information necessary to respond to their query.
You’re likely used to seeing page titles and meta descriptions every day in search engine results, like the traditional 10 blue links you used to see in Google’s search results but didn’t know their names (until now).
Page titles and meta descriptions are crucial if you want your website ranking high in Google.
We’ll go through what page titles and meta descriptions are in this article, why they’re crucial, how to write them, and how to add them to your website.
- What Is Metadata?
- What Are Page Titles?
- What Are Meta Descriptions?
- Why Are Page Titles and Meta Descriptions Important?
- Are Page Titles and Meta Descriptions a Ranking Factor?
- How Long Should Page Titles and Meta Descriptions Be?
- How to Write Page Titles for SEO
- How to Write Meta Descriptions for SEO
- Which Page Titles and Meta Descriptions to Optimise First
- How Do I Add Page Titles and Meta Descriptions to My Website?
- Why Is Google Not Using My Page Title or Meta Description?
What is Metadata?
Metadata is data that is inserted into the code or placed below a layer of code to give the software reading the code additional information that isn’t visible.
Metadata can take many different forms, and Wikipedia lists some of them.
The digital images you take on your phone or camera will have metadata, which will provide the location where they were shot, the ISO, the focal length, if a flash was used, and other information.
Digital music files often contain metadata that includes the song title, artist name, type of music, genre, and other information.
Videos also have metadata, which is somewhat similar to the metadata used in HTML pages (described below) in that it lists the title and description of the video.
As there are many metadata tag possibilities accessible to website owners (or “webmasters”), each of which can be optimised to make your website easier to locate and use, metadata for websites is a complex topic. The Title Tag (also known as “Page Title”) and the Description Meta Tag are two of the most crucial.
What Are Page Titles?
Small chunks of HTML code called “Title Tags” or “Page Titles” can be found in the source code of websites.
They appear as follows:
By pressing “Ctrl+U” or by following these instructions, you can access the source code of this page if you’re using the Chrome browser.
The author or webmaster selected this as the page’s title. It appears in your browser’s tab title and is also the name you use to bookmark a page.
Search engines like Google display this title on their search results pages. This page title can then be used by users, like you, to decide whether the linked page has the details they need.
The likelihood that someone will click the link to your page depends on how effectively you optimise the wording in your title tag. The chance of having a lot of search engine traffic to that page increases with a great title tag.
To prevent Google from truncating the title and omitting its most crucial components, page names should be kept brief. Additionally, titles should accurately summarise the substance of the linked-to page; otherwise, visitors are more likely to leave the website as soon as they realise the content isn’t what they were looking for.
What Are Meta Descriptions
Small sections of HTML code known as “meta descriptions” give a description or summary of the page they are related to. It should summarise the information on the page it is ascribed to, much like the blurb for a book or the plot summary for a movie. The source code should contain this code.
They appear as follows:
If you access the HTML source code for this page by clicking “Ctrl+U,” you may find the meta description for it there.
The webmaster or the content’s author will select the meta description for each page. Only when a page is shared on social media or in search engine results pages does this description appear.
Similar to page titles, the effectiveness of a meta description can influence how likely it is that a user will click on the associated link and visit the corresponding page. The likelihood that the page will be clicked on decreases if the description is poorly optimised, or in extreme situations, absent entirely.
If a page doesn’t have a meta description element, Google may take content from the page, which frequently consists of just phrases from the main menu, leading to absurd page descriptions.
Like page names, meta descriptions should be kept to a minimum in order to prevent Google from cutting them off.
Why Are Page Titles and Meta Descriptions Important
Search engine users usually click fewer times on page titles and meta descriptions that are not optimised than on those that are.
Even if you succeed in raising your website’s ranking and landing on the front page, your efforts will be in vain if no one clicks on your link.
Consider the page title and meta description of each of your pages going forward as an advertisement for your company. Every page’s metadata should be attractive to your target audience and well-designed.
Are Page Titles and Meta Descriptions a Ranking Factor
Meta descriptions and page titles do not affect rankings. Google first stated this in 2009, but if you come across conflicting information, don’t be shocked.
Title tags are included as “the second most significant on-page component for SEO” in Moz’s On-Page Ranking Factors guide, although Backlinko’s Google’s 200 Ranking Factors guide mentions the inclusion of keywords in title tags as a ranking factor.
Although we think title tags and meta descriptions are crucial for search engine optimisation, we think the most crucial factor to take into account is how well-optimised title tags and meta descriptions are for clicks to improve your click through rates. Userability of a site and bounce rates are ranking factors so anything you can do to improve these by tweaking your titles and descriptions is worth it.
Your title tags and meta descriptions have a greater probability of being clicked if they are properly optimised.
Sometimes all that’s required to multiply visitors to a page by several orders of magnitude is to improve the metadata of a URL that already ranks highly.
Additionally, it is said that Google keeps track of which URLs attract and keep the most users. We refer to this as “pogoing” when a user clicks one link, then navigates away and clicks another. Google claims it is a ranking component, but we think it’s extremely likely that it is tracked and considered in some way when determining rankings.
How Long Should Page Titles and Meta Descriptions Be?
When creating page titles and meta descriptions, it’s vital to not overdo it. Despite the fact that you may have a lot of positive things to say about the page you are optimising, it’s extremely possible that much of what you have written won’t be read by anyone.
In Google’s case, excessively long page title tags or meta description tags are trimmed. Page titles typically have between 55 and 70 characters cut off (or 600 pixels).
As you can see from the range above, there is no precise point since the truncation often depends on the number of words in a title tag or the nature of the search query performed.
Due to these factors, we suggest creating page titles that are 60 characters or less in length. However, you should also research the ways in which titles are displayed for your target search query (also known as a “keyword phrase”) in order to optimise your title to fit Google’s handling of that search query.
Again, it depends on the query how long a meta description should be. Because meta descriptions may also be reduced, we advise writing them to a maximum of 155 characters.
Because screen size restrictions on mobile devices frequently result in shorter meta descriptions, we recommend to write meta descriptions that are 120–130 characters long. To take advantage of that extra visibility on desktop searches, we may then include a second 25–35 character statement, such as a Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
Over the past few years, Google has altered the lengths of page titles and meta descriptions several times, including a point when meta descriptions were 300 characters in length before reverting to 155 characters. Because of this, we advise creating page titles and descriptions that are concise in addition to periodically examining how your pages show in Google’s search results to evaluate how your metadata is displaying.
How to Write Page Titles for SEO
The most recent advice on writing page titles for SEO may be found in our tutorial, “How to Write Page Titles and Meta Descriptions for SEO,” but the concepts apply regardless of character limits.
- Page titles should be short
- They should include the most popular keyword phrases for the page
- They should suit the intent of a searcher
- They should list your Unique Selling Points
While it’s necessary to strive to abide by the aforementioned advice, it’s most critical to pay attention to the titles that Google is currently displaying for searches that are similar to yours. Don’t be scared to follow the crowd; it’s extremely probable that other websites have tried what works.
In order to determine whether your new page names are performing better or worse than your prior page titles, you should also keep track of the amount of clicks you receive on each. This can be accomplished by keeping an eye on your clicks in Google Search Console.
How to Write Meta Descriptions for SEO
Similar to producing an advertisement for your website, writing a meta description is similar. It should be succinct and straight to the point, presenting your Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) in the shortest amount of time. You just have a few milliseconds to grab someone’s attention, therefore you must be succinct.
Character limits are also in place for meta descriptions, but they vary depending on whether a user is searching on a desktop or a mobile device. Due to this, we advise drafting your meta description in two parts: one for desktop searches and another for mobile searches.
- Meta descriptions should be short
- They should highlight your Unique Selling Points
- They should accurately summarise the content
Which Page Title and Meta Descriptions to Optimise First
It won’t matter which order you write your new page titles and meta descriptions if you’re an electrician with a website that has 15 pages, but if you run or own an eCommerce business, you can have thousands of pages of metadata to write.
The ideal strategy is to compile a list of all the URLs of your website and the amount of traffic they each receive. The list can then be sorted based on the number of visits or sessions per page.
Starting with the first 10 pages, go over and rewrite the page titles and meta descriptions. Then, check back in a few days or weeks to see whether your hits and organic traffic per page have increased or dropped.
Alternately, using the same list of sites, you can use keyword research to determine the amount of searches for each page’s best search query, then begin by generating new metadata based on those queries.
How Do I Add Page Titles and Meta Descriptions to My Website
It is easy to write HTML tags for page titles (HTML Title Tag) and meta descriptions (HTML Meta Tag). To compose them, all you need is the notepad program on your computer, but installing them can be challenging (depending on the system your website is built with).
Different approaches to adding metadata are used by different content management systems (CMS). For example, adding page titles and meta descriptions in WordPress / WooCommerce requires an additional plugin. On the other side, Shopify includes easy-to-use built-in methods for adding metadata to each product page.
The Yoast SEO plugin is the simplest to set up and use if your website was created with WordPress, while newcomer Rank Math has been wowing SEO experts with its user-friendly plugin system.
Why Is Google Not Using My Page Title or Meta Description
On some occasions, Google might decide not to use the updated page title or meta description you supplied. Don’t be too depressed about it; it happens often.
There are a number possible explanations for this, but the most frequent one is that Google has concluded that a website’s content provides the information a user is seeking for but that the page title or meta description is insufficient to compel a user to click.
In order to generate a new page title and meta description that it thinks will be more likely to get a visitor to click on and visit that page, Google uses the content that is already there on that page.
The page title or meta description being under-optimised is the primary cause for this. The search engine generates new information for that particular section of the page because it may contain a variety of topics or many responses to the same question.
For this reason, we advise checking the search queries for each page to see if it appears for any more keyword phrases. If it does, we advise checking your metadata and using the keywords in the title or description appropriately.
Because Google hasn’t re-indexed the page since it was last updated, it’s also possible that your changed page title or meta description isn’t being used. Larger websites frequently experience this, when some pages are not regularly inspected on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis.
The best course of action is to use Google Search Console to make Google re-crawl the URL. The metadata in Google’s search results ought to then update. Whether it doesn’t, it could be worthwhile to consult an SEO expert to see if the page’s source code contains anything that might be blocking the proper metadata from being used.
