Page Titles and Descriptions – SEO tips for Small Business Owners
Like other Small Business owners who may have just launched a new business, budgeting for a complete SEO campaign before making any sales is just not feasible… Is there any simple rules you can follow to at least get your website off to a good start in Search Engine Rankings?
Page Titles and Page Descriptions are a great place to start. By following these simple points below, any website owner can get Search Engines like Google to take more notice:
What are Page Titles and Why Do I need them?
Page Titles (also called META Titles) are the titles for Search Result listings that display in a Search Engine after performing a Search. It stands to reason that Google would prefer to list accurate titles of each Search Result, rather than misleading titles or titles with no text at all. Most Website platforms that allow owners to make their own updates to a website will have the ability to type in a Page Title for each content page or Product in the website.
Unique Page Titles
If you’re going to add Page Titles to pages in your website, it’s vital you spend the time and to make each of them unique. I’ve built many sites for new businesses and the one easy thing I’ve noticed that can set websites apart in Search Engine results from their competitors is having unique Page Titles on each page or product page of your website. Google doesn’t like to see too much duplicate content within a site as it can come off as inaccurate or even Spammy – having the same Page Title on each page of your website also doesnt help differentiate between pages of your website when they are listed in Search Results.
How to write Page Titles
The tile of the page should be a short title (often only a few words) of the content viewers can expect to see when reading that page. Google and other Search Engines list their search results by the Page Title and list the Page Description below it. The Page Description (META Description) should be a brief summary (often only a sentence) describing the content on the page. See below for some quick guidelines:
Guidelines for Page Title:
- 55-60 characters in length at most – Google wont display anything more than this in it’s Search Results.
- One keyword on each page title is sufficient – multiple keywords in your title can make your site look spammy to the Search Engines.
- The optimal place to put your keyword is often right at the beginning of the page title.
- Make it unique – dont use the same Page Title text for other pages in your website.
Guidelines for Page Description:
- 150-160 characters in length at most – Google wont display anything more.
- Include your keywords in the description, they will be bold if matching the Search Query a user has typed into Google.
- Write a summary about the corresponding page, making sure it is a true reflection of content on that page.
- Make it unique – dont use the same Page Description text for other pages in your website.
More
If you’ve mastered the above and want more detail on crafting the perfect Page Title and Page Description, there are some great resources online – MOZ.com is a great resource for SEO experts and the links below explain Page Title and Descriptions in more detail:
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