Choosing the right Meta Title and Meta Description is vital

Why bother?

Meta Title and Meta Description counting tool

Having a great Meta Title and Meta Description is a superb way to help boost your websites’ search engine optimisation. Thankfully, these are easily updated on modern websites, allowing owners to improve the SEO properties quickly and effectively.

You can't underestimate the importance of good Meta data

The Meta Title and Meta Description Tags are the very first thing a visitor sees when they search online for a website. Google generally uses the Meta Title on your website as the main heading for your search engine listing and then places the Meta Description underneath.

Having the right Meta Title and Meta Description is clearly very important. Thankfully there are some simple rules to follow when writing these:

Getting the length of the Meta Title and Meta Description tag to be of the correct length is relatively easy. Using our online meta title and meta description character counting tools you can see instantly if they are the correct length.

This Meta Title counter tool will help you achieve a good title length

Your Meta Title is a good length.
Consider shortening your Meta Title
Your Meta Title is too long.

Use this Meta Title Counter Tool to see how many characters you’re using in your Meta Title Tag as this is very important for Search Engine Optimisation. Google will truncate your Meta Title after approximately 67 characters, however, they may allow slightly more, 85 is a good approximation. If you Meta Title length is 67 characters or less the background is green, it then changes yellow when the Meta Title length is OK, but could do with shortening. A meta title length of over 85 characters is bad practice and the background will go red.

Improve your website's SEO with this Meta Description counter tool

Use this Meta Description Counter Tool to count how many characters you’re using in your Meta Description Tag. This is your chance to entice visitors to your website from the search engine listing. Google will index more than it shows, and although it is generated dynamically, you should aim to keep this at 155 characters or less. If you Meta Description length exceeds 155 characters the background of this Meta Description Counter Tool goes yellow.

Your Meta Description is a good length.
Consider shortening your Meta Description

These websites will help you with writing Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions

As well as using an SEO counter to get the correct number of characters in your Meta Title and Meta Descriptions, it’s also important that they read well. These websites have some great ideas on how to do just that:

Meta Tags are just one aspect of SEO that needs to be considered, if you need help getting your website found read more about how we can help you!

Run a full website SEO Audit

A great way to see if you have good quality Meta Title and Meta Description data is to run a full website SEO audit. We would recommend using the SEMRUSH suite as we have found this to be the most comprehensive range of tools for optimising a website’s SEO.

What you need to know

Are Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions really that important?

In a word – yes! Firstly, not having the right words in your Meta Title or Meta Description means Google won’t list you properly in their index. Secondly, a poorly written Meta Description won’t prompt people to click on your listing.

Sometimes my Google Meta Description is different - why?

Google doesn’t always use the Meta Description you provide when displaying search engine results. As part of their algorithms it can chose to display more relevant information.

What if I really need to use a longer Meta Description

You can make your Meta Description as long as you want, however, best practice suggests keeping it to 155 characters or less.

Why can't I stuff my Meta description with keywords?

Firstly, a poorly written Meta Description looks unattractive and could put some people off from clicking on your website. Secondly, Google does not like it when you do this and will more than likely penalise you.

Want to know some more?

Our SEO Expertise

Having been in the SEO business for over 12 years, we have a very good understanding of how to write good Meta Descriptions and Meta Titles. This is a key factor in how to optimise your website and get found online. We only employ techniques that are industry standard and won’t get you banned by the likes of Google if you try to fast track the system – it simply doesn’t work!