SEO meta title and description
Google presents people with millions of results every time they search. Google tries to present the most relevant results closer to the top. People then need to figure out which result is relevant to what they seek. Each result shows a title and description.
- Meta (or SEO) title
- Meta description
Meta information is not shown directly on your website. It is information that search engines use to provide details before a person clicks a link to your website. Think of it like your own advert to entice people into visiting.
Meta title
We recommend using the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin, which will show you a coloured bar that turns green when you reach the ideal meta title length of 150 and 170 characters.
There are two considerations in title length:
- Google cuts titles off after 150 and 170 characters, which means anything after this will not be visible to people viewing your title in search results.
- Even though people may not be able to read the full title, search engines still can, so it’s ok to go over the recommended length if there are keywords you want search engines to know about in your title.
Meta description
Think of your description as a follow on to your title. For example, If your title raises a pain point, tell people that you can solve this in your description.
The same approach used for your title should be followed for your description. Again, if you’re using Yoast SEO, they have a handy indicator bar for ideal description length.