SEO terms can sound intimidating before you know what they mean. We've been there and we understand. A great way to start understanding SEO is to start with your page titles and meta descriptions, as these are two things that show up in Search results under your company name. If they are wrong or missing, it could make your website look untrustworthy to people looking at your result in the search engine result page.
What are Page Titles and Meta Descriptions?
Page titles and meta descriptions are your storefront signs for the internet, which is why you want to make sure they are:
1. There for people to read and understand.
2. Optimised for you to take full advantage of click-through opportunities.
So, let's start with finding out what a page title is and how it can improve your blog post rankings on search engines.
As you can see in the image above, the page titles are what appears in blue in a Google search result. The meta descriptions are longer descriptions of what the page is about. The most important rule for both of these texts are to make them relevant to the pages they are pointing to.
While considering SEO factors is great, the most important thing is that it tells a human what to expect when they click on the result.
What's the Best Way to Optimise Page Titles and Meta Descriptions for SEO?
Keeping the most important factor in mind, you do want your page titles and meta descriptions to conform to Google's guidelines and SEO best practices.
Page titles and meta descriptions are powerful components of your website. Although they might seem like small details, they are a vital part of SEO and getting the most out of your organic search traffic. By making sure to optimise page titles and meta descriptions you can ensure that search engines as well as humans will find what they’re looking for quickly and efficiently on your site. To get the most out of optimising these, make sure to follow best practices including writing descriptive copy, including keywords, targeting readers rather than search engines and keeping the length within an optimal limit. If you want to make sure you’re doing everything right with page titles and meta descriptions, we've created a downloadable checklist which details the most important best practices for writing your page titles and meta descriptions.
Wrap Up
To summarise, page titles and meta descriptions are two essential elements of SEO that help to influence your organic search engine traffic. With this in mind, take some time every month or so to periodically review your page titles and meta descriptions — it’s all part of great ongoing SEO strategy. And if you're feeling overwhelmed or want a hand, refer to our handy checklist — it's got all the key points discussed in this article broken down into easy-to-follow instructions. Good luck!
Download The SEO WTF Guide to Page Titles and Meta Descriptions under the image below or visit our blog for more resources.
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