Today search engine result pages are flooded with loads of websites competing to appear in the Top 3. In this competition, if you want to stay ahead, you must optimize the meta tags, especially the meta title and meta description to outperform them.
What are Meta Tags?
Meta tags are short HTML information about the web pages to provide full details on what the web page is all about. These include Meta Title, Meta Description, heading tags, and Meta keywords, robots, canonical. Nowadays Google does not consider the meta keywords and you can optimize them strategically in your content. In this post, let’s learn the meta title and meta description along with meta data limits in detail.
What is a Meta Title?
The title tag is an HTML code that appears as a blue line on the search engine results. It provides that signal to Google what the page is all about. It also appears on social media posts if you have added an open meta graph or Twitter card. The title tag belongs where in your HTML is
<title>This is a title</title>
Ideal Meta Title Length
The meta title character limit is 50-60 characters or 580 pixels. If your title is longer than 60 characters, then Google will truncate. It is thus advisable to keep it under the ideal length limits.
What is SEO Meta Description?
Meta Descriptions is an HTML code describing the brief about the Title tag. It appears beneath the meta title. It can be a synopsis of the title to entice the clicks from the visitors. If you add an open meta graph, the description appears as an except to the post wherever you share. It plays a major role in driving traffic to the site. Ensure that you write compelling meta descriptions to increase click-through rates.
Ideal Meta Description Length
Keep the meta description character limit between 150-160 or 430-920 pixels. Always write a meta description for the Visitors. This will help in attracting more users and entice more clicks.
Google often changes the meta description based on the search intent. So be creative in writing rather than just following the guidelines. You can write it concisely yet informatively which effectively describes the landing page.
Benefits of Meta Title and Meta Description
- Helps in improving search engine ranking
- Enhance click-through rates
- Create a better user experience
- Optimize previews during social media sharing.
- Increase the online visibility
- Helps in content Categorization
- Appear as rich snippets
How to Optimize Title Tags for SEO?
Title tag optimization can improve rankings significantly. It improves click-through rates and drives more visitors to the webpage. Here are some basic practices to attract visitors.
1. Create a Title knowing the context
Title plays a crucial role in increasing the website’s visibility so create them considering the context of the web pages. It should be descriptive and relevant enticing users to click them. Knowing the context is crucial even when creating a landing page, blog post, or product page.
Map the keywords with their target page as it can help search engines understand the website better. Append a brand name to promote brand awareness and maintain authority and trust. If you are handling a dynamic site where title creation is tiresome, then you can create variable strings and add the titles in bulk. Create a systematic plan to ease and strategize the workflow. Here is an example of different types of pages.
Example – For Beauty Brand
For Home Page – Best Makeup Items & Beauty Products Online – Beauty Forever
For Product category page Skin –
Buy Skincare Products Online | Face Creams & Serums
For Blog Page – 5 Essential Skincare Products to Maintain Moisture in Winter
2. Write a Title knowing the Search Intent
Knowing the search intent is crucial as it helps capture the visitors in different stages of the customer’s journey from awareness to buying. Title creation is an important part of on-page SEO. It requires a well-crafted strategy to optimize them. Titles should be effective in capturing the essence of the topic.
Titles should be tailored based on the queries visitors may type in search engines for their specific needs. Use natural language and phrases in your title. You can use learn, discover, buy, top, best, etc to make the title clickable. There are four different search intents and here are examples of them for your reference.
Search Intent – Information
Query – Tourist places near Bangalore
Title – Top Tourist Places near Bangalore within 300 km
Query – Brand + Keyword (flights)
Title – Expedia flights
Search Intent – Commercial
Query – Best places to travel
Title – Best Places to Travel near Bangalore during Monsoon
Search Intent – Transactional
Query – Buy flight tickets
Title – Buy Flight Tickets – Discover the Best Deals at Low Prices
You can use the Title generator tool for best results
3. Focus on the Topic Relevancy
Make titles for visitors rather than for search engines. Keep it natural and focus on the topic rather than just stuffing it with keywords. Google uses the title to understand what the content is all about and if it doesn’t match the relevancy then your content-rich web pages will also not rank well in search engines. Try to understand what the content of the page is all about and identify the main keyword it is targeted to write the title. You can also get help from the heading the content writer uses.
4. Create a Unique Title
When writing the title, ensure it is original and not copied from sites similar to you or your competitors. Sometimes you may notice that Google picks different titles and this can be because it finds H1 more relevant to your topic. The other reason can be that the title is missing and Google fetches what it finds can be relevant to your topic. Ensure to add a meta title in HTML format in the head section. If you do not add unique and relevant titles, then you might have low click-through rates. You can also use the Yoast plugin if you have WordPress CMS.
5. Dynamic titles for Large Sites
Most of the websites are based on CMS where titles are generated automatically, especially for large sites. But you can always customize them so that they can be more relevant and meaningful. You can also create the title in bulk using variable and constant terms in Excel.
If you have many SKUs of skin care products then you can add the constant string like
“[product_name] skin friendly cream at best price from Beauty Forever”.
This will help you to generate effective titles quickly and ensure that they are meaningful and unique.
Creating a dynamic title can help you reach your target audience and have a larger impact on your rankings. You can audit timely to check if title tags need to be revised. Title tags should render the tags you intend.
6. Entice Click on SERPs
The title tag should convince the visitors to click and ensure that they find the landing page meaningful and relevant to the title. If you cannot match the title and landing page then users will exit or bounce. This will lead to low dwell time and a high pogo-sticking. Google then can demote your rankings on the search engine result pages. So, titles have a great impact on boosting the visibility online.
7. Make use of the Headline Analyzer Tool
You can use the tool Headline Studio from coschedule. This will help you write attractive titles in seconds. It also generates the score and suggests ways to improve it. The score is based on the common, uncommon, and emotional words. You can create a new title based on a topic or keywords. You can also use the headline analyzer plugin for WordPress. Here is the snapshot from the Headline Studio tool. Try it now!
How to Create Compelling Meta Descriptions?
A meta description is a little summary or overview of a Title. Keep it short, concise, and to the point to get more clicks. Here are some of the best practices to write meta descriptions.
1. Keep it relevant and under limits
Most of the time Google pulls the description of what it feels is appropriate based on search intent. But if you create them naturally for users then it might show what you have optimized it for. Try to keep it below 160 characters.
2. Include a focus keyword
Add one focus keyword in the description and keep the rest with handy details your customers may look for before converting. This greatly helps the queries if they are immediately looking for a service. Here is the snapshot of the search results and how they have optimized their description.
Suppose visitors are looking for a dental clinic near me then according to the above-mentioned example they know that they have to visit the site and call to book the appointment.
3. Make it conversational rather than pitching
Add a conversational and active tone of voice to make it more engaging. If you stuff with keywords then Google will not fetch them from the metadata and rather show something else that loses interest. If you want your visitor to click your description and take a call, then you should have a conversational tone rather than sales pitching.
4. Always Add Meta Description
Google will fetch the meta description from the content in case you leave it blank. In addition, during an SEO audit, try to add the missing Meta description and fix the duplicate Meta description of the site. It is the best way to capture the visitor’s attention and entice their clicks on the pages appearing high in search engines.
5. Enhance Meta Description
Schema Markups make your webpage stand out and outperform your competitors. It also helps in adding relevant information that visitors can trust like reviews. You can also add useful information in the form of product schema with pricing. In the below example, the business owner has added a conversational tone and all the details required to get a call and converted.
6. Include a call to action
You always want your users to act by clicking meta descriptions like call, shop, email, etc. So, you can add phrases that encourage users to visit or try your services and they are-
Learn more
Find out more
Shop now
Try for free
These phrases will not impact SEO but they will help users to act.
7. Match the Content of the webpage
It is crucial to promote your product or service when writing meta descriptions but ensure that it aligns with content. If your tone of conversation is selling, then Google will understand that you are misdirecting users. Due to this, Google will not show your description at all and even penalize you for it. This can result in a lower down your ranking.
8. Show specifications where possible
With the maximum data limits, you can only add the gist of the content. Thus, showing specifications in the form of rich snippets can help users to act immediately. Rich snippets can be pricing, in-stock or availability, reviews, and ratings. You can also use semantic keywords or synonyms of primary keywords in the description to attract searchers with different queries.
SEO includes a plethora of ranking factors and on-page SEO elements to rank the site. However, having a compelling and relevant meta title and meta description can entice clicks. Follow the above optimization tips to scale your SEO efforts. By learning the above tips and knowing how to write them, start creating and optimizing them today!