How to Write a Perfect SEO title and Description?
If you wish to enrich your SEO, then concentrate on creating the perfect title and description. If you can learn how to optimize them, then you can possibly notice a spike in your organic search rankings.
Whether you are looking to enhance your website’s SEO or trying to improve the impact of your content marketing strategy, optimizing your SEO title and description is something you cannot ignore.
In this blog, we will learn how to write a perfect SEO title and description. But before that, let’s understand in detail what are Title and Meta description tags and why they matter.
What are Title Tags and why are they important?
Title tags are also known as Page titles. They are the clickable title of a webpage and are shown with the search results page.
To set a title, one needs to use <title> tag in the HTML around your tag.
<head> <br/> <title>Webpage title</title><br/>
However, many content management systems have forms that automatically set the <title> tags for web pages.
Your Title should be limited to only 60-70 characters as Google can only showcase that many characters in the search results. Aim to create clear and easy to read Title tags that can help your website to be understood by your target audience.
Title tags convey to people and search engines the topic of a webpage. Also, they tell search engines the relevance of a webpage for a search query.
Hence, the title of a webpage should be related to the content as much as possible.
Where do Title tags appear?
Your page titles also appear in few other places in addition to your website. You need a title that works everywhere if you wish to draw large attention to your website.
- External websites: External website links to a page using the Title tag as the anchor text.
- Browser tab: It appears on the tab of your browser.
- SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages): On Google, the title tag is the clickable blue link of text that can be used to steer through the website.
Craft the perfect SEO Title tag
A great title captures your attention and entices the audience to click on it.
Here are a few practices which you can utilize to start crafting such compelling SEO Title tags.
- Uniqueness is the key: As every page of your website is unique, your title must reflect on it. Customize the title tag which is in relevance with your title page’s content. Your title tag must signal to search engines what your page is about.
Furthermore, having a crisp and precise title is useful to anyone who sees the page in the search listings.
- Word choices matter: Incorporating words like HOW, WHAT, THEY, WHERE in your title can give a glimpse of what to expect on the page.
Also, words such as BEST, ULTIMATE, COMPELLING, POWERFUL, etc. can trigger your audience to click on the title and go through your website.
- Utilize your target audience: Your website can only be useful to your target audience if it appears when searched for the right term. Hence, for each page, you should have a target keyword.
Include the main keyword in your title tag. This helps the search engine to make it clear that your page is relevant for the particular term.
- Avoid any SEO mistakes: Titles that are too long are not properly showcased on the search results. Whereas the titles that are too short do not convey enough information to search engine bots to effectively understand the information of the page.
Or if two or more pages have a duplicate title, it may create confusion for search engines and lead to lower rankings for the concerned pages.
What is Meta Description and why is it important?
Meta Description is a short snippet, a description tag in HTML, that recapitulates a page’s content. On SERPs, the meta description appears under the title page and the URL.
It’s a critical element of On-page SEO. Hence, you need to understand the best practices for creating it.
While Google states that the meta description doesn’t give you page rank benefits directly, it does help in improving the CTR (Click-through Rate). And Google does utilize this user-controlled metric to decide a page’s rank position.
Write the best Meta Description for SEO
Now that you have an idea about meta description, let’s shift towards how to write one. Any good meta description will always prioritize the user experience and would have the 3 following features.
- Find answers to these questions: What is my page about? And why my page should rank higher on SERPs?
- Incorporates the main keyword the page aims to rank for: Including the keyword here is an on-optimization opportunity.
- Utilizes benefits-focused content: Tell your audience what they can get after viewing your content.
To create a good meta description:
- Prioritize the most important information: Your meta description must communicate the subject matter and advantages of your page swiftly. If the page refers to a specific product, brand or topic put the related keywords first.
- Make your meta description conversational: Ensure you write for people, not for search engines or any other algorithms. Natural language is the best medium for effective communication.
- Put your content as per the benefits of the user: Rethink the concept of SEO to user experience optimization.
- Revise it two or three times: Going through the description can help you notice better ways to fit advantages, details, and value into the allotted space.
Hence, go back and update your meta description. (Remember, the altered meta description don’t immediately change on the SERPs, bots would need to crawl your page again to pick up the change.)
Things to avoid when writing Meta descriptions
Along with implementing the best practices possible, it is critical to avoid certain tactics to create a perfect Meta description.
- Avoid stuffing keywords: Don’t repeat your keywords more than 9 keywords.
- Don’t copy/paste a part of the web page’s content as your meta description: Write a compelling and unique description that can serve you as a mini-ad.
- Don’t use the same description on more than one page: Doing so can confuse your bots and dilute the impact.
Final words
The title and description optimization may be small, but they are a mighty aspect of Search Engine Optimization. Creating them effectively can easily edge out your competitors.
Remember, SEO is all about building a productive search experience for users, and not just chasing a robotic algorithm.