Your meta title and description are elements of on-page SEO that help users understand what your page is about.
In the search results, your meta title and description can appear when your website is listed for a relevant search.
A well-optimised title and description can boost visibility, improve click-through rates (CTR), and enhance user engagement.
Contents
- What are Meta Titles & Descriptions?
- Why are Meta Titles & Descriptions Important?
- Useful Tips
- SEO Plugins
- Other SEO Recommendations
- How to Add Meta Titles & Descriptions Using Rank Math
- FAQs
What are Meta Titles & Descriptions?
Meta titles and meta descriptions are HTML elements that summarise your page in search results, they provide a preview of your content and influence whether users visit your page.
- Meta title: Clickable blue link users see in search results that serves as the title of the page.
- Meta description: Short text below the title that summarises the page and encourages users to click.
Why are Meta Titles & Descriptions Important?
Meta titles and descriptions play a crucial role in increasing a website’s visibility and engagement.
Well-written titles and descriptions help improve click-through rates (CTR) by making search listings more appealing, attracting more visitors to your site.
Meta titles and descriptions can enhance user experience, allowing visitors to quickly assess whether a page contains the information they’re looking for.
A well-structured and consistent approach to meta tags also strengthens branding, helping build trust and recognition among users.
It’s important to be aware that Google may instead show a ‘snippet’ of your page content that is tailored to the user’s search. Even though the meta title and description you specify may not always appear, it’s important to include one as a backup if a relevant content snippet is not available or cannot be accessed.
When you use keywords from a search query in your meta title and description, these words will be bolded for the user, making your webpage look more prominent.
Useful Tips
Meta Titles
- Don’t use more than 50-60 characters to avoid it being cut off
- Place the primary keyword that you’d want your page to show for at the beginning
- Make it clear and engaging – use power words and/or numbers where relevant
- Avoid duplicate titles – each page should have a unique one
- Use your brand name where appropriate and character limit allows for credibility
Meta Descriptions
- Keep it within 150-160 characters for full visibility
- Be descriptive and write naturally – don’t stuff keywords
- Make it unique to the page and reflective of the content
- Clearly describe what users will find when they click through
SEO Plugins
There are lots of SEO tools and plugins available to help you implement meta titles and descriptions and other on-page SEO elements.
At Atelier, we like to use Rank Math and Yoast.
Rank Math
Rank Math offers AI-driven suggestions to help create effective meta titles and descriptions.
It provides a built-in SEO analysis to identify areas for improvement and integrates with schema markup and rich snippets, enhancing the way content appears in search results.
Yoast
Yoast is a popular SEO tool that uses a traffic light system to evaluate SEO readability and keyword usage.
It provides automatic suggestions for improving meta titles and descriptions and includes a readability analysis feature to help structure content more effectively.
Other SEO Recommendations
- Use a focus keyword in your meta title & description
- Include the keyword in the URL and early in the content
- Use keywords in subheadings & image alt tags
- Link to external, high-authority sources
- Utilise internal linking to relevant pages
How to Add Meta Titles & Descriptions Using RankMath
- Find the Rank Math tool on the right hand side of the page or post that you are creating. Click on the X / 100 icon to open up the Rank Math panel.
2. Enter a focus keyword to get recommendations on how to improve the webpage from an SEO perspective. For a focus keyword, think about the sort of things people type into Google that you would like your webpage to show for.
3. Click on ‘Edit Snippet’ to change the meta title and description.
4. Enter the information in the boxes provided. These changes will save automatically when you exit the Preview Snippet Editor.
5. If you scroll down when you have RankMath in the side panel, you’ll see drop downs that you can open to find additional ways you can improve your webpage from an SEO perspective. Use the information icon to understand more about how you can achieve these suggestions.
Meta Titles & Descriptions – FAQs
Do meta titles and descriptions affect rankings?
No, meta titles and descriptions no longer directly impact your ranking in the search results. However, having a well written meta title and description can make users more likely to click on your website.
How often should I update meta tags?
Review them periodically, especially after content updates or ranking changes.
Can I use the same meta title or description for multiple pages?
Each page should have a unique meta title and description, tailored to its content.
What happens if I don’t add a meta description?
Google will generate a meta description automatically, but in the event a relevant snippet cannot be found or accessed, a strong meta description can improve user experience and performance.