Search engines are a great way to find all sorts of information, but what does it take for your blog posts and articles to be found? A meta title and meta description. In this post, we’ll cover how to write a good meta title and meta description so you can rank higher in search engine results pages.
What Is a Meta Title & Meta Description?
Meta titles and meta descriptions writings are bits of HTML code placed in your website’s header that tell search engines what each page is about. This is not to be confused with a header, which could say “header.” The title tag should only contain the contents of the actual page you are linking to, while the meta description is a bit longer and can contain multiple sentences.
Keep in mind that Google will only display about 70 characters of your meta title or meta description, so you always want to make them short. If it’s too long, they get cut off at the end. Search engines depend on these bits of text to give searchers an accurate summary of what they’ll find if they click your link. If your title and description fail to meet this criterion, you could lose traffic and ranking. The key is finding a balance between sounding professional and enticing while getting the most important information across in the fewest words possible.
How To Write A Good Meta Title
Writing the meta title is pretty straightforward. When you go to edit it, it’ll look something like this:
The first thing you want to do is write an enticing headline that tells the searcher what they’re going to find. There is a meta description character limit. So don’t jam-pack your title full of words and phrases that aren’t relevant to the content—it’s not going to impress anyone or make anyone want to click on it.
A good meta title uses proper grammar, contains 70 characters, is straight-to-the-point and straightforward, and contains relevant keywords.
How To Write A Good Meta Description
Writing a good meta description is similar to writing a good title with just a bit of room to work with. While Google limits your title to 70 characters, the meta description max length can be as long as 300 (which you will never do). Keep it short and simple yet informative.
Your meta description should be about 150 to 160 characters long, including spaces. If you go over that amount, search engines may cut it off before the end because there’s no context for them to work with. To find your character count on this site, look at the toolbar at the top of the screen and click on “word count.”
A good meta description should use proper grammar, contain 150-160 characters, be straight-to-the-point and straightforward, and include relevant keywords.
Don’t put any unnecessary filler words in your descriptions! They won’t help you rank higher. They’re likely to do the opposite.
For example, let’s say you are writing about how to cook a pork roast in the oven. A good meta title would be “How To Cook Pork Roast In The Oven.” That’s simple, to-the-point, and contains no filler words. In your meta description, you could add a few sentences explaining what you will teach them how to do.
A bad meta title/description might be “Carve Roast Pork Oven Cooking Tips Tender Easy Delicious Meats Instructions Sauces Recipes Tips Tricks.”
See the problem? All those extra words are just taking up space without adding any value. You’ll also notice that there are no keywords in sight! The last thing you should do is stuff your description with random terms, which will only serve to annoy searchers and lower your click-through rate.
That’s all there is to creating a good title and description! It would help if you always wrote your titles and descriptions with the searcher in mind. If you can include keywords, great; if you can’t, don’t stress it. Just make sure that people who search for those words will see something relevant when clicking on your link.
If your meta title and description fail to meet this criterion, you could lose traffic and ranking.
The key is finding a balance between sounding professional and enticing while getting the most important information across in the fewest words possible.
Meta tags are HTML on steroids. They allow you to control what search engines see on your page, ensuring that they index only the right keywords to drive the most traffic.
Meta tags are what search engines use to decipher what your page is about, so you want them to contain only relevant terms. And while you should include all of your keywords in your meta tag content, if you have a lot of information on a particular subject, you’ll need to cut down on the fluff.
It would be best to write your meta tags using simple, natural language that flows well and doesn’t contain superfluous words or phrases. Make sure they read nicely, whether someone is skimming them or reading word for word.
Using meta keywords can be tricky—if you go overboard with them, you’ll look spammy. If you don’t use them at all, your page will be under-indexed, and you could miss out on traffic. Keep your meta keywords between three to five terms long to increase your chances of being appropriately indexed by search engines.
Writing titles and descriptions for images is different than writing text content. With images, you want to include as many relevant keywords as possible without sounding like gibberish.
This is an example of a bad title: “Bountiful Bee Photography.” Who or what is a bountiful bee? Is it the name of someone’s business Lulu took pictures for? It doesn’t tell us anything and could be used for any photo.
This is an example of a good title: “Beach Sunrise Photography.” If someone sees this image on Google images, they will know what it is about instantly. They don’t need to read the meta description or click through to find out more (although they can if they want more information). The title does all of the heavy lifting.
It’s critical to include keywords in your images, but make sure they are mixed in with natural language to read well and sound professional. Remember: you want to stand out among the other results on Google. You don’t want people clicking through because of a clever title alone—that means you won’t come up first anymore, and you’ll miss out on traffic.
Alternative Titles vs. Alt Text
The “Alternative Title” meta tag allows you to specify a format-specific title for your web page. In contrast, the alternative text (or “Alt text”) meta tag specifies what will appear if an image can’t load properly or isn’t available, such as when it hasn’t been uploaded or JavaScript is disabled.
The alternative title tag still makes an appearance on some engines, but it’s not a requirement. You can optimize both tags using the exact keywords and phrases for a regular page title and description. Here are a couple of examples of how alternative titles and alt text might look:
Title Tag Alt Text Title Of My Page The Title Of My Page display: none;
Here are some examples of what not to do with alt text:
“imgsrc=example.jpg” – This looks unprofessional and will turn off visitors. No one likes to view images on a page that look like made-up words or symbols that don’t mean anything.
“My Page Alt Text” – This is incomplete and doesn’t provide any value to the user. This looks unprofessional and will turn off visitors. No one likes to view images on a page that look like made-up words or symbols that don’t mean anything. It would help if you had alt text for images, not for another title.
“Contact us” – This isn’t an image in the traditional sense, but it is a file on your site that can load broken or obscure data if JavaScript is disabled or unavailable. This is incomplete and doesn’t provide any value to the user. It would help if you had alt text for images, not for another title. “Contact us” doesn’t tell the user anything about what to expect when they click through.
“My image is just my image” – This means the visitor won’t get anything out of the page when they click through– This isn’t an image in the traditional sense, but it is a file on your site that can load broken or obscure data if JavaScript is disabled or unavailable. “Contact us” doesn’t tell the user anything about what to expect when they click through.
– This tells the visitor that they won’t get anything out of the page when they click through. alt=Company Name– Always avoid putting your business name in your alt text, even a local business. This will not expose your business to images you already rank high, and it’s an unprofessional way to handle alt text.
How to Implement the Title and Alternative Text Tags
The code for this is simple: alt= “Title of my image here.” Once you have created, optimized, and uploaded your image to your site, you can add this code using a plugin such as Yoast or All In One SEO.
If you’re on WordPress and use the Yoast plugin for images, go to “Content” in the left sidebar of the admin page and then select “Title &Metas.” You can then enter your alt tag information in the “Alternative text” and “Title” boxes.
For All in One SEO: click on “META,” then you’ll be able to add your title and alternative text in the fields provided.
If you just started writing for the web, you may still consider a title tag as the main headline. But meta titles have changed over the years, and they do NOT need to be your page or post headline – which is why it’s essential to know how to write SEO-friendly titles and alternative text for all images on your site.
Title tags are now precious real estate for getting your main keywords in front of your target audience.
Alt-text is more critical than ever because it can boost rank and help people discover an image even when they don’t access the linked content.
While the title tag and alt text might seem like something you could ignore, they’re precious for both your image SEO and user experience. So don’t overlook them! Plus, Google will give you a boost for optimizing these tags well.
Both title tags and alt text play an integral role in on-site optimization, so it’s worth taking the time to get them right and do it the right way.
The Bottom Line:
Do not use your page or post headline as a meta title. The only time you should be using your page or post headline is on social media sites, where it has to get right to the point.
Use keywords in your title tags, but don’t stuff them. Google doesn’t want pages that are entirely loaded with keywords, and it will penalize you for keyword stuffing, so try to use the target keywords 2-3 times and make sure they are natural;
Alt text benefits not only users but search engines as well. It’s essential to write alt text that gives your target audience insight into what the image is about to help guide them to your site. Plus, Google loves alt text because it helps people discover ideas when they can’t see them – which can help boost your ranks. Don’t neglect alt text or title tags – they’re valuable for both users and search engines!
If you’re writing for the web, it’s a great idea to take a few minutes and research current best practices for writing meta titles.
Once you learn what the title and alternative text meta tags are, how to use them, and their benefits for SEO, you’ll be able to write better meta titles and alt text that get more traffic for your site.
