Meta descriptions
- Thread starter Raging Bull
- Start date
The title is the bit that normally appears at the top of each result when you a search using Google or Bing or whatever.
The description is the bit that appears beneath the title.
The title is a vital element in ranking. The description won't help your ranking directly but it can entice people to click.
The description is the bit that appears beneath the title.
The title is a vital element in ranking. The description won't help your ranking directly but it can entice people to click.
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A
alanc
Titles are what gets displayed in the title bar of the brower - the title for this page is showing a 'Meta descriptions | UK Business Forums'
Meta descriptions are often used by search engines to provide the two line text summary that appears beow the URL when the web page is show in a search result.
Meta descriptions are often used by search engines to provide the two line text summary that appears beow the URL when the web page is show in a search result.
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Meta description as fisicx said earlier entice people to click from search engines if they are displayed for a particular search query. If they are not crisp and are missing Call to Action words people wont click-through from the search engines. The small snippets tells people what your page is about and based on the descriptions they take their call to visit your site so you can image what can happen if not done correctly.
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M
MASSEY
If your title is poor you may not rank as well as you could. You may be lacking keywords meaning you don't rank as well as you could, you may have far too many keywords and again not rank as well as you could.
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They won't harm your site - you just won't rank as highly or get as many clicks as you could.
But don't focus on them too much. It's the whole mix you need to consider: title, description, headers, content, anchor text, imagery, inbound links, inline links and so on. Google looks are the whole page, it's place in relation to the rest of the site and all the other websites offering similar.
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Z
ZeroDouble
To expand upon this statement, here's a link to a white paper from earlier in the year about ranking factors by Search Metrics.
It contains some really interesting information, some surprising results, and IMO is well worth a read - Enjoy!
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Now that you have multiple product pages you can take the help of your developer to make this happen with the helping of running a code on your server that can create predefined formats for your title and meta descriptions. Your Product Pages Title format can be for instance
<Product Name >,<Category Name>, <Brand Name> (ignore the brackets) All the title tags must be unique they they are same type of products differ in price include the price in the title so that they appear unique. If they don't appear unique might create duplication issue.
Hope that helps
<Product Name >,<Category Name>, <Brand Name> (ignore the brackets) All the title tags must be unique they they are same type of products differ in price include the price in the title so that they appear unique. If they don't appear unique might create duplication issue.
Hope that helps
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R
ReviewsThatStick
Checked the link and indeed it's worth the read. Just like what fisicx said, don't focus too much on the title and meta description since they are just a part of the whole thing. The title is more like a short intro about your product that first appears on search engines.
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Hi,
You can choose keywords for your site through Google ad word keyword planner tool, try to choose high search and high competition keyword for your site. There are 2 types of keyword i.e short tail keyword (For home page) and long tail keyword (For inner page) and for description you can use your title in your description. Just remember your thing, don't ever do keyword stuffing.
You can choose keywords for your site through Google ad word keyword planner tool, try to choose high search and high competition keyword for your site. There are 2 types of keyword i.e short tail keyword (For home page) and long tail keyword (For inner page) and for description you can use your title in your description. Just remember your thing, don't ever do keyword stuffing.
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Late to the party here but I have some tips for meta titles/descriptions.
Firstly, try and keep the title to about 66 characters - this way it doesn't trail off when it comes up in search and looks nicer for the user.
Secondly, meta descriptions should be about 150 characters so they don't trail off in search. You should also include a CTA (call to action) to entice the user in. So, if you're a restaurant then you might include a CTA that says 'Browse our menu and book online today'.
Also, with regards to keywords - as people have pointed out - keyword stuffing is not a good idea. Just include 1 or maybe 2 keywords (depending on the length) into the title and the same 1 or 2 along with perhaps one more that is relevant to the page in the description.
The point of doing this is twofold, ranks and UX.
Firstly, try and keep the title to about 66 characters - this way it doesn't trail off when it comes up in search and looks nicer for the user.
Secondly, meta descriptions should be about 150 characters so they don't trail off in search. You should also include a CTA (call to action) to entice the user in. So, if you're a restaurant then you might include a CTA that says 'Browse our menu and book online today'.
Also, with regards to keywords - as people have pointed out - keyword stuffing is not a good idea. Just include 1 or maybe 2 keywords (depending on the length) into the title and the same 1 or 2 along with perhaps one more that is relevant to the page in the description.
The point of doing this is twofold, ranks and UX.
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How much of the title and description is shown in search results is based on pixel width, not character count any more - just for the record.
There is also no need to keep your titles short enough so that 100% of it is in view. Whilst you should get the important pitch in at the beginning, even if a title is 100 characters long, it's not to say that characters 70 to 100 won't be picked up by a search engine and contribute to relevancy for organic rank. Granted though, for usability of course, make sure what matters is within the first 50 characters.
There is also no need to keep your titles short enough so that 100% of it is in view. Whilst you should get the important pitch in at the beginning, even if a title is 100 characters long, it's not to say that characters 70 to 100 won't be picked up by a search engine and contribute to relevancy for organic rank. Granted though, for usability of course, make sure what matters is within the first 50 characters.
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Title, Keyword and Description these 3 are most important thing or part of ON page seo of a site or page. So its necessary to get perfect title, keyword, description. These 3 are consist of meta tags. You can choose keywords from Google keyword tool and then after choose right Title as per page content or url then after make a different different unique description with using title for your site or page.
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I do not agree with you about the keyword meta tag, it is completely ignored and pointless. The title and description should read well, should describe your page, and should encourage the searcher to click on your page as the displayed title and description are what he/she is looking for.
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Hi,
Kulture and Mark, I agree with your points.
Kulture, mark is also right that we should to use different different description including Title of page and I also like your point that description should be describe that page.
As per my concern, over all conclusion is that we should to use descriptive and attractive description using Title for any page.
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Hello John
Thank you so much for your favor and support and I also really appreciate the point of kulture that we should to make our description as on the basis of descriptive and attractive through which when user search then he should to click on our link.
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Titles were, are and will be important.
As for the value of meta descriptions, search engines don't pay much attention to them these days. However, they are important, as they can work as an ad for the click.
Say, you page shows up in a search results for some keywords. Providing it is supplied with a well-written description, there are more chances that someone will click through to read the rest. Think about it, you read those descriptions when you search, and so do your prospects. That's why writing catchy, informative meta descriptions is a task you shouldn't ignore.
As for the value of meta descriptions, search engines don't pay much attention to them these days. However, they are important, as they can work as an ad for the click.
Say, you page shows up in a search results for some keywords. Providing it is supplied with a well-written description, there are more chances that someone will click through to read the rest. Think about it, you read those descriptions when you search, and so do your prospects. That's why writing catchy, informative meta descriptions is a task you shouldn't ignore.
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This post is talking about meta descriptions. Not on-page copy. Therefore not possible to make the text bold, the search results will automatically bold any words from the used meta description that match words the searcher has used in their search query.
And anyhow, making words bold on a web page has no weight in ranking a page, this was something that may have worked a good 5+ years ago now.
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Hi Bull,
I found this guide(http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo) from Moz quite useful. It's not that big on details but does round-up the basics and, most importantly, does not give you rubbish information. Similarly, there's this one (http://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors) where you can read about on-page optimisation in particular.
I found this guide(http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo) from Moz quite useful. It's not that big on details but does round-up the basics and, most importantly, does not give you rubbish information. Similarly, there's this one (http://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors) where you can read about on-page optimisation in particular.
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Admittedly Title Tags are not the be all and end all of SEO, people should focus on the big picture and make sure that everything is correct. However, (and this does frustrate me) Title Tags do have an almost disproportionate amount of SEO 'power'. They will not get you to the top by themselves but they do seem to have more influence than they should. Google is obviously looking to tackle this issue head on, they have started to automatically correct title tags that appear too spammy and insert what they consider to be the company name in the homepage title tag (they get this wrong sometimes). I think this is a clear indication of people overusing keywords in the title tag and Google trying to tackle this issue although it still does not seem to be completely solved....a but like EMD's.
You should definitely take the time to consider your title tags carefully, they should describe the page content and having said the above, they should still include keywords you are looking to target. Also, as has been mentioned it is important to avoid duplicate content issues where title tags are 'competing'.
Meta descriptions are more for CTR than SEO.
But as fisicx does rightly say, no use spending your entire life playing with title tags, just get them done properly and then move onto other factors. There is no one thing, it is the amalgamation of the smaller parts.
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M
Markrichard
I would say titles and descriptions are basically to tell a general user what your page is all about. Don't think like what search engines say about it. Think like you need to tell a laymen about your page so what you will do? probably you will title your page with a phrase and then will describe it. That's actually one should do. In my view title should be in phrase continuously. Also it's not going to harm you that large if you go bit long then ideal 70 char. limit. Description should not be more than two lines. I like to see titles which does not contain Pipes(|) instead of it's better to use dash (-) if you want to make your title for search engines though it's not advised.
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Titles and descriptions need to be written first for your target customers, then second for SEO. If you look at your competitors use of titles and descriptions, you may find they aren't much use for conversions - so you can now stand out.
Think about your meta data thus:
Think about your meta data thus:
- Talk to your customer
- Get them to act
- Tweak for SEO
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Is there an average pixel width for a certain device? Presumably this could be translated into a mean number of characters that could be used as the guidelines for length.
I don't suppose it matters too much, rather more important is the effectiveness of the title/description itself. Still, making sure a title/description isn't too long or short is probably wise?
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Every page title and meta description on your site is more important, from the point of view of both the search engines and your readers.
Having an effective Meta descriptions won't secure you the top position in SERPs but it's the first information your customers will see when searching for something.
Having an effective Meta descriptions won't secure you the top position in SERPs but it's the first information your customers will see when searching for something.
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Firstly, the page title is not a meta tag.
Secondly, why is the best length limit 70 characters? The amount of page title that is shown in the search results is determined by pixel width now, not character length and anyway, this isn't to say a search engine doesn't pay attention to a part of the page title that isn't shown.
Keep what's important for users at the front of the page title but don't worry about making it longer than the so called "recommended" if they are still unique, descriptive and of relevance to what the page contains.
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Keep it natural and make sure it makes sense to the user. If this includes your keywords then so be it.
Users first. Search engines second.
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