What Is A Meta Title?
You’ve probably seen spaces to enter meta titles while developing a website. But what is the significance of a meta title? Here's what you need to know.
Meta Title Definition
The meta title or title tag is essentially the title for a web page. The meta title tells Google and those searching what a page is about. Google references the meta title immediately when describing how indexing a website works.
"Googlebot processes each page it crawls in order to understand the content of the page. This includes processing the textual content, key content tags and attributes, such as <title> tags".
Be very particular about what a meta title says as it will show up in search engine results and act as a banner advertising a web page. The title will also show up on internet browser tabs when a page is opened.
When we say “be specific” we mean it. SEO is highly competitive and meta titles can grab attention from potential customers or subscribers. Make sure to include relevant keywords or long tailed keywords to provide the most attention and visibility when people search for anything related to the services or products on a page.
How Many Characters In A Meta Title
Be precise and selective when it comes to writing a meta title. There is various character limits depending on what website platform you are developing on. Typical meta title limits are between 60-70 characters.
There is more than enough SEO real estate within the allowed character limit to properly sum up a website pages content. Keeping meta titles between 40-60 characters is a good practice as its not too short, not too long.
There is room to expand in the associated meta description which has upwards of 320 characters available. The goal of a meta title is to provide a concise and comprehensive description about what the page is about and how it is relevant to the search.
Meta Title Keywords
The most important thing you can do is target keywords within a meta title. Using a keyword research tool that offers search volume statistics will ensure you are including keywords that will gain exposure and be relevant to the pages content.
When selecting keywords for a meta title, make sure to target specific, small volume, niche keywords. Trying to rank for keywords with giant monthly search volumes will most likely make a web page get lost in a crowd of competition.
Stay away from using duplicate title tags across various pages in a website. Repeating keywords could confuse Google's algorithm as to what page to display in search results. Repeating keywords too much could be seen as "keyword stuffing" and receive a penalty from Google - Something a SEO does not want to ever see.
Be unique and find search terms that target a specific audience or product. Don't be discouraged by lower search volume keywords. Sometimes these are the niche keywords that your audience is searching for.
Meta Title Optimization
A great way to stand out when writing meta titles is to find long-tailed-keywords, or keywords with 3-5 words. This practice, essentially targets a variety of keywords in a small area in terms of character limit.
A good example of this would be the keyword “Fitness Clothing For Sale”. An estimated 90 people search for this every month in the United States. “Fitness Clothing'' has a monthly search volume of 4,400 and “Clothing For Sale” 33,100. 33K search queries per month is extremely high and not necessarily practical to rank for. BUT - you now are targeting 3 different keywords within one long-tailed-keyword “Fitness Clothing For Sale".
Meta Title Best Practices
Once familiar with what a meta title is and its importance to a web page, what are the best ways to go about writing a meta title? Many SEO experts have their own practices and writing styles when it comes to creating a page title. The main thing to remember when writing a meta title, is to stay relevant and be creative.
Make sure that meta titles reflect the on-page content and the wording is unique. The goal is to organically market a web page to real people searching for a solution. A properly written meta title will be the invitation to Google to crawl a pages content.
A good example would be the website of our client, Boat Customs. By using the correct meta title keyword placement we have managed to get them ranked on the first page of google in the #1 spot (at time this article was published, SEO is a competitive business! SEO Maintenance is required to maintain and grow organic traffic and ranking position) for the query "custom boat painting". The main thing to recognize here is the use of keywords, it is straight to the point, relevant and shows the searcher exactly what they do.
Another great way to find keyword opportunities is researching your competitors meta titles. Visit competitors' website pages or use Google search results to find their meta titles. Competitors that rank for similar keywords of interest to your business are easy to find. Visual search results will reveal ideas if you’re struggling to find relative keywords when writing a meta title. For further reading check out this page with specific "Tips for writing effective title tags.
How To Add Meta Titles On Wix
When working with Wix websites, adding meta titles is a pretty simple and straightforward process. In the Wix editor, on the left hand side there will be a “Menus & Pages” tab.
From here, select the page to add/edit a meta description. At the far right of the site tab there will be a “show more” icon. Choose the “SEO Google” tab. This will open another window off the right hand side of the site's page menu.
Once that is open, scroll down to where it says “What’s the page’s title on search results and browser tabs?” and input the meta Title. Publish to save the SEO improvements and make it live on the internet.
In Conclusion
Writing meta titles can be pretty simplistic. The main focus is not deviating from the specific offering on the page.
Make sure the reader is clear as day what the page is about when reading the meta title.
Make sure to utilize a variety of strong keywords to show up when people search for anything related to the services or products offered.
Make sure to stay within the character limit while writing a cohesive and descriptive meta title.
Follow these guidelines and monitor a web pages performance over time view success.