{"id":457,"date":"2020-08-05T12:38:16","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T12:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/2022\/08\/12\/the-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions\/"},"modified":"2023-09-20T15:03:25","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T15:03:25","slug":"the-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/the-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions\/","title":{"rendered":"The importance of meta titles and descriptions"},"content":{"rendered":"<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3351\" src=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/The-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions.jpeg\" alt=\"The importance of meta titles and descriptions\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\" \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meta titles and descriptions play a huge role in your on-page <a href=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/services\/seo-agency-uk\/\" data-wpil=\"url\">SEO<\/a>. Meta descriptions are essentially a summary of what your page has to offer users. The information that you provide in your meta titles and descriptions should be relevant so that your website can be indexed correctly by the search engine. This week\u2019s blog is all about the importance of meta titles and descriptions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is a meta title tag?\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A meta title is often displayed as the primary reason for visiting a webpage. It is the headline that you would click on to visit a webpage. Title tags are much shorter than meta descriptions because they are designed to be read quickly. It is recommended that title tags are no longer than 70 characters. Each page on your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/services\/website-design-and-development-agency\/\" data-wpil=\"url\">website<\/a> must have its own unique title tag that incorporates relevant keywords where possible. However, while you\u2019ll want to try to include <a href=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/a-guide-to-keyword-research\/\">keywords<\/a>, do not include them when it\u2019s not necessary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You should do some research into search queries that are relevant to your business and see if you can create pages or posts on your website that answer the questions of users. Having relevant meta titles can really help to boost your site&#8217;s SEO.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is a meta description?\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A meta description is used to give a brief summary of what your webpage has to offer. It is a HTML element that helps both users and search engines to work out if your page is relevant to the search query. You will usually find the meta description of a page underneath its meta title on the search engine results page, but it can also be found by right-clicking on a page and selecting \u2018view page source\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meta descriptions are often your first opportunity to impress users with your business. If you can encourage users to click through to your website through your meta description, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/the-importance-of-a-good-quality-website\/\">a high-quality website and content<\/a>, you know that you can give a good first impression and potentially make a sale.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you use a content management system, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/services\/wordpress-web-design\/\">WordPress<\/a>, you\u2019ll have a guide on how long your meta description should be. The guide uses colours to indicate if your description is too long or too short. Previously, meta descriptions could be up to 160 characters long, but Google now allows and displays up to 275 characters, so you should try to aim for that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meta titles and descriptions and SEO\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Search engine optimisation (SEO) is very powerful. Using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/services\/seo-agency-uk\/\" data-wpil=\"url\">SEO<\/a> means that you are marketing your products and services to users that are genuinely interested in making a purchase from you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meta titles and descriptions are free to use, so any traffic that you receive through this is organic. A high-quality and relevant meta description mean that more people may be interested in your website, which means you\u2019ll have higher levels of organic traffic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If your business offers something that you know your competitors don\u2019t offer, it might be a good idea to use that information in your meta description. If a user searches for a particular business type and you and your competitors come up on the SERP, users may be more likely to choose to purchase from your company over theirs just because of the information in your meta description.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Within your meta title and description, you should try to use specific keywords that your business ranks for. This will really help to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/5-reasons-why-your-business-needs-seo\/\">enhance the SEO<\/a> on your website.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019d like any more information on meta titles and descriptions, please don\u2019t hesitate to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/contact-us\/\">contact us<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meta titles and descriptions play a huge role in your on-page SEO. Meta descriptions are essentially a summary of what your page has to offer users. The information that you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,14],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The importance of meta titles and descriptions - Complete.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Meta titles and descriptions play a huge role in your SEO. Meta descriptions are essentially a summary of what your page has to offer users.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/the-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The importance of meta titles and descriptions - Complete.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Meta titles and descriptions play a huge role in your SEO. Meta descriptions are essentially a summary of what your page has to offer users.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/the-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Complete.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-08-05T12:38:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-09-20T15:03:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/The-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"667\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tom\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/the-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/the-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions\/\",\"name\":\"The importance of meta titles and descriptions - Complete.\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/the-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/the-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/The-importance-of-meta-titles-and-descriptions.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-05T12:38:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-09-20T15:03:25+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.completeonline.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/7e590090dbcc4d3377227317f3fc01de\"},\"description\":\"Meta titles and descriptions play a huge role in your SEO. 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