The head section of an HTML page contains information that tells browsers and search bots what the page is all about.
The title is the page’s title while the meta description shows a brief summary of the page’s content.
The title and meta description are important as they preview a page’s content in the SERPs. They can boost the ranking a website as you’ll see below
How is the title & meta description created
The title is written inside the HTML title tag in the head section.
The meta description is created with the meta tag and the description is written in the content attribute like below.
<head> <title>Document Name</title> <meta name="description" content="Learn how create title and meta descriptions that get clicked"> </head>
Depending on your website the title and meta description can be hard-coded, but if you’re using a CMS like WordPress you can create these easily without writing HTML.
The title tag is automatically created in WordPress when you publish a post or page. However, the meta description is not implemented in the core WordPress. You have to install a plugin like Yoast to write meta descriptions.
When you install the plugin it will give you an interface under every post, page, or taxonomy page to add the meta description. Yoast has some options to customise meta descriptions and title tags like adding variables and keyphrases.
How Google uses title & meta description
The title and meta descriptions are the first things search bots look into to try and understand what the page is all about.
Google has said that meta descriptions and titles are not used as ranking factors, however, this claim is still heavily debated amongst SEOs.
Most search engines display the title in a blue colour. The meta description is displayed just below the title.
If you don’t provide a meta description search engines writes their own using the page contents. Conversely, if you provide one search engines may substitute with their own that seems relevant to the user’s query.
How long should title and meta description be?
There’s a word limit you need to have for your title and meta descriptions for them to show up without being truncated, i.e some words cut off.
Ideally, the title should be around 60 characters and the meta description around 155 characters. However, you can write as long as you want but search engines will cut off some words though.
How to increase click-through using catchy titles and meta descriptions
Titles and meta descriptions can determine whether people will click to your site or scroll by.
They show a preview of what people will get so you need to make them enticing.
In addition, if more people click through to your site, it shows search engines that your website content is more relevant, pushing it to the top.
You can increase click-through rates by:
Use Catchy Hooks
Using catchy hooks, e.g Is SEO dead in 2024?, Secret SEO methods revealed
Use How & What
For educational content use How & What, e.g How search engines work, What is desertification, What are the factors affecting
Use Numbers
Use numbers: 5 SEO secrets revealed, 7 ways to increase traffic to a site, 20 colour themes to inspire on your next design
Add Benefits
Brian Dean of Backlinko said to add benefits to your meta descriptions. What do users get from your page or article?
Title & Meta Description Best Practices
- Your keywords must be present in the title as well as meta description.
- Keep them short
- Try to avoid dynamically generated titles and meta with JavaScript
- Write benefits in the meta description
