The title and the meta description

Module 3: The technical basics of a page · Reading time: 11 minutes

Learning objective: After this lesson you can write a good title and meta description for every page, explain what Google does with them and why Google sometimes replaces them, and check whether they are set up correctly on your own pages.

Key concepts: <title>, title link, meta description (<meta name="description">), snippet, rewriting by Google, truncation by screen width, rule of thumb for length, unique titles, brand name, keyword stuffing, nosnippet

Two lines in the head of your page

Every page of a website starts with a part that visitors don't see: the <head>. It contains two lines that matter a lot to search engines:

<head>
  <title>Bruidsboeketten op maat in Amersfoort | Bloemenatelier Lotte</title>
  <meta name="description" content="Een bruidsboeket dat bij jullie dag past. Kom langs voor een gratis kennismaking in ons atelier in Amersfoort, of bekijk eerst onze voorbeelden.">
</head>

You see the title (the <title> element) in your browser tab, in your bookmarks and above all in the search results. Google calls the blue, clickable line in a search result the title link. The meta description is a short summary of the page. Google sometimes uses it for the bit of text below the title link: the snippet.

Together they largely decide whether someone clicks on your result or on someone else's. That makes this one of the few things in findability where you can make a real difference in fifteen minutes.

What Google does with your title

Google puts it like this: make sure every page has a title in the <title> element, and make it descriptive and concise. Vague titles such as "Home" or "Welcome" tell nobody anything.

Google usually uses your <title>, but not always. Google can also build the title link from other sources: the biggest heading on the page (often the <h1>), the og:title for social media, prominent text on the page, the text of links pointing to the page, and the name from structured data of the type WebSite. This happens mainly in these situations, which Google names itself:

If Google rewrites your title, that is not a penalty. It's a sign that your title doesn't describe the page well enough. Improve the title and Google will often use it again after the crawler's next visit.

How long can a title be?

This is where a lot of advice on the internet goes wrong. Google says literally that there is no limit to the length of a <title>. The title link in the search results is, however, truncated so that it fits on the screen. That happens by screen width (pixels), not after a fixed number of characters: a title with lots of wide letters (m, w) is cut off sooner than one with narrow letters (i, l).

That's why this course uses a rule of thumb, not a Google rule: keep your title between roughly 15 and 65 characters. Shorter is often too vague; longer risks losing the most important part. So put what the page is about at the front, and your business name at the end.

Writing a good title

From Google's guidelines and from practice:

1. Say what the page is about. "Bruidsboeketten op maat in Amersfoort" (custom bridal bouquets in Amersfoort) is better than "Diensten" (Services).
2. Every page gets its own title. Two pages with the same title can't be told apart in the search results.
3. Keep the brand name short, at the start or end, separated by a character such as |, : or -. Google advises against adding a long slogan to every title.
4. No keyword stuffing. "Bloemen Amersfoort, bloemist Amersfoort, boeket Amersfoort goedkoop" doesn't help. Google explicitly names repeating keywords as something that looks spammy; it is even in the spam policies (lesson 8.2).
5. Keep it up to date. A year in the title means you have to update it every year.

A common mistake with website builders: the homepage is called just the name of the business. "Bloemenatelier Lotte" says who you are, but not what you do or where. "Bloemenatelier Lotte | Bloemist in Amersfoort" (florist in Amersfoort) works better for someone who doesn't know you yet.

The meta description

The meta description sits in a <meta> element:

<meta name="description" content="...">

Google says the snippet comes mainly from the content of the page itself. The meta description is used when it summarises the page better than a piece of text from the page. On top of that, the snippet can differ per search query: Google shows the part that best matches the query. So a good meta description is no guarantee that it will appear, but it does increase the chance that something sensible shows up below your title.

Here too, Google has no maximum length, but the snippet is truncated to fit on the screen. The rule of thumb in this course: 70 to 160 characters. Long enough to say something, short enough to stay visible in full.

How to write one:

• Summarise what someone will find on the page, in plain sentences.
• Mention concrete details that help people choose: location, what you offer, who it's for.
• Give every page its own description. Short on time? Start with the homepage and your most visited pages; Google recommends that too.
• No list of keywords. Google writes that such descriptions are used as a snippet less often.

What the meta description does not do: it isn't a ranking factor that gets you a higher position with keywords. It's there to persuade the searcher to click.

Deciding for yourself what is shown

Don't want Google to show a snippet, or only part of one? You can control that with a robots meta rule: <meta name="robots" content="nosnippet"> (no snippet) or max-snippet:50 (at most 50 characters). You can exclude a piece of text with the data-nosnippet attribute. Most small sites don't need this.

Where to see and check it

• In the source code: open your page, right-click and choose "View page source" (or Ctrl+U). Use Ctrl+F to search for <title and description.
• In the search results: search for site:example.com to see how Google shows your pages. If the title link differs from your <title>, check which situation from the table above applies.
• In Search Console: the Performance report (lesson 2.3) shows which pages get lots of impressions but few clicks. That's where a better title and description pay off most.

In practice: setting the title and description

• In the WebOké AI Builder you enter a separate title and description for each page. If you leave the title empty, a normal page gets "Page name | Site name" and the homepage is simply called by your site's name. So give your homepage a title yourself that also says what you do. The SEO check in the AI Builder warns about a title of more than 65 and a description of more than 160 characters: the same rules of thumb as in this course.
• In WordPress, WordPress builds the title itself from the page title and the site name. WordPress doesn't create a meta description by itself; for that you use an SEO plugin or a theme that offers it. This is also covered in the WordPress course, lesson 9.2.

Other website builders work in a similar way: look for settings such as "SEO", "Search engines" or "Page settings".

Summary

• The title is the clickable line in the search results; the meta description summarises the page and is sometimes shown as the snippet.
• Google may replace your title if it is half empty, outdated, inaccurate or the same everywhere, or if there is no clear main heading.
• Google has no maximum length, but truncates by screen width. Rules of thumb in this course: title 15 to 65 characters, description 70 to 160 characters.
• Every page gets its own descriptive title and description; no keyword stuffing; brand name short at the end.
• The meta description helps people choose, not your position in the rankings.

Quiz

Exercise

Exercise A3.1: Your page's title and meta description. Enter the address of a page on your own site (the homepage or an important page). The program fetches the page the way a search engine does, reads the <title> and the meta description and counts the characters. You'll see whether they are present, whether they fall within the rules of thumb and whether the title says more than just your business name. No site of your own? Use www.rijksoverheid.nl.

Further reading

The steps in these articles apply to the WebOké panels; other providers work in a similar way.

• Submitting your website to search engines (Google and Bing)
• Sitebuilder and AI Builder: which one do you choose and how do you open it?
• Google Search Central, Influencing your title links in search results: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/title-link
• Google Search Central, Snippets and the meta description: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet