Example Title
https://www.example.com
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Titles
The pages title is often considered the strongest on-page SEO signal and because of this, it’s crucial to get it just right. When writing an effective title, keep these best practices in mind.
Length
For both titles and meta descriptions, if they are too long for Google’s SERP, they will be shortened with an ellipses. This will affect the CTR and so it’s important to remain below length threshold. Rest assured though, even if the title is truncated, Google still crawls the truncated content. It just won’t show in the search results.
Front Weighted
One critically important distinction with titles as well is that they are front weighted. This means that the first keyword will be have more impact on the pages ranking than the second and so on as the title gets longer. This means it’s important to have your primary keyword for the page as the first word in the title.
Secondary Keywords
The title length can be up to approximately 600 pixels, or around 70 characters. Depending on your keyword, you will generally use about half of that length on your primary keyword. Not using the full length of a title is a missed opportunity and there is almost always space for a secondary keyword in titles. If you haven’t used up the full length of the title, find another keyword to fill in that space.
Brand Mentions
It’s commonly considered a best practice to include a brand mention in your title. This isn’t particularly for rankability but to allow brand recognition in the search results. Users may spot a brand they recognize and would be more likely to click on that result. Include brand mentions when you can but, if you are reaching the end of a title, this should be the first part removed from an extra long title.
Misplaced brand mentions are also one of the most common title optimization mistakes. Companies regularly begin their titles with the brand names. As we know already, titles are front weighted and this is the most coveted position in a title. It’s important to use it for the keywords so brand mentions should always go at the end of a title.
Meta Descriptions
The meta description will utilize the majority of your SERP real estate and, while it’s not a ranking factor, can definitely make a difference in your optimization performance.Here are the best practices when writing a meta description.
Length
Google recently changed the maximum length of their meta descriptions to 320 characters! This is great news for SEO’s, we can now practically write novels in our meta descriptions compared to the measly 155. What’s important about the length though, other than being below the limit, is that this change was implemented in December of 2017. At the time of writing, that was 3 months ago. Not many companies have taken advantage of this new length and so there’s a competitive advantage to be had in being the first. More SERP real estate than your competitors!
CTR
It’s very important to note that meta descriptions are NOT a ranking factor. It may seem like they are as performance improves after implementing custom meta descriptions but this is simply a by-product of the improved CTR (arguably, a ranking factor. This is currently a contentious point so take it with a grain of salt). Therefore, write your meta descriptions with the goal of enticing a click, not with the goal of getting as many keywords in it as possible.
CTA
With the main goal of attracting a click, one of the common best practices you’ll find for meta descriptions is to always include a call-to-action. Generally this could be as simple as “learn more” or “read this” but ultimately, you have to at least ask for the click.
Bolded Keywords
Finally, even though the meta description is not a ranking factor and should be written for the click, the keyword should show up at least once in the meta description. This is because the keyword will be bolded if it matches the search query and bolded phrases catch the eye, reassure the searcher that the result matches their query, and improves the CTR.
There are a few things to note with bolded keywords though. First, Google will also bold close variants and some synonyms. If you don’t get the keyword in there exactly but it’s close, you’ll likely still get a bolded keyword. Secondly, if your keyword is made up of multiple words, and they show up in the meta description fragmented, they will ALSO still get bolded. Bolded keywords aren’t limited to exact matches of the query.