Title Tags and Meta Descriptions for SEO | Examples and Best Practices

Title tags and meta descriptions are essential pieces of the SEO puzzle. They direct readers to your website and they help them understand what they’re looking at once they’ve arrived. If you don’t know what a title tag and meta description look like, how to construct them, or their real value, read on because we’re going to answer your lingering “What are title tags and meta descriptions” questions so you can utilize these marketing tools to their full potential.

If you’ve already been creating title tags and meta descriptions for your website’s pages, you might learn a bit about how to optimize these SEO components so they bring more conversions your way.

What is a Title Tag and How Do You Create One?

A title tag is a short bit of information, often several keywords or a phrase with a keyword or keywords, that appears to the reader on the tab of a webpage and it shows up at the top of a website’s individual SERP listing (the clickable result for each page listed). It’s an invaluable snippet of content that offers a brief summary of what a page is about and an opportunity for a website owner to rank for keywords.

Title tags should be written so that they don’t contain more than 60 characters, as Google will cut off any characters beyond that. They should contain keywords that help the reader understand what the main point of a page is and that provide fuel for optimal SERPS placement.

When you create a title tag for one of your web pages (every page on your site should have a title tag), you’ll want to incorporate a focus keyword. This should be a keyword you’ve found to be a high-ranking keyword or a keyword you’ve concluded your company could capitalize on, according to your previous keyword research.

The best title tags are pertinent, useful, and effective. They’re not spammy or overly salesy, but rather they provide value to the reader while helping your page rank. Title tags may have 2 or more keywords, but they must make sense when the reader views them and they should to adhere to Google’s character limit.

Here are some examples of good title tags for a New York City luxury hotel:

Luxury Hotel in New York

{Hotel Name}

NYC Hotel
Notice that we’re almost at our keyword limit. If the name of the hotel is short, this title tag will work. If it is long, we might drop the last keyword that appears after the pipe. And, notice that we use the pipes to separate keywords and make the title tag easy to read. This is not a requirement, but it is helpful. You could also rewrite the title tag this way:

{Hotel Name}

A Luxury Hotel in New York Near Central Park
Again, with this title tag, we would have to pay attention to character limit once we insert the hotel name.

Also, title tag construction will vary depending on the page the tag is written for. A title tag on a hotel’s home page should look different than a title tag on a hotel’s amenities page, which could appear something like this:
{Hotel Name}

Amenities

Luxury Hotel in NYC

Creating Meta Descriptions – What Are They Anyway?

Meta descriptions also offer information about a specific webpage. They provide the reader with a somewhat detailed description of a page when viewing the page’s SERP listing. A meta description appears beneath the title tag in the SERP listing and it’s written more like a sentence than a short keyword phrase.

Like title tags, meta descriptions must make sense. They also shouldn’t be spammy or overly salesy. Each meta description is a valuable piece of SEO content that helps you rank, so it absolutely must include keywords – most importantly the same focus keyword you chose for your corresponding title tag. You can, and should, include at least 2 keywords (your focus keyword and a secondary keyword) in your meta description. But, don’t keyword stuff to the point that they reader is confused about the page’s content.

This is an example of a meta description that could appear under the title tag mentioned above for the New York City hotel’s amenities page:
{Hotel Name} is a luxury hotel in NYC, offering 5-star amenities and impeccable design in both public spaces and guestrooms. View our amenities.

Meta descriptions should be less than 160 characters. Notice that the meta description about fits into the character limit. And, they should invite the reader to learn more about the page that’s being talked about. Meta descriptions for contact pages could include an address or a phone number.

The most important things to remember when constructing title tags and meta descriptions are: inclusion of focus keyword, readability, and length. And, as a side note, when deciding on focus keywords to use in title tags and meta descriptions, it’s good practice to opt for a different focus keyword for every page of your website, if possible. That way, you have more opportunities to rank for various keywords. And, you should give each title tag and meta description original text. Avoid temptation to use a template or structure that has all of your title tags and meta descriptions looking the same except for the focus keyword.

If you need help crafting title tags and meta descriptions for your website’s pages, Galileo Tech Media can help. We provide comprehensive SEO services for In-House Agencies, Travel, Real Estate and beyond, which includes title tag and meta description creation and evaluation.