Many people may think that it is the product and the content on a given page that has a decisive influence on whether users decide to take advantage of a company’s offer. However, before a potential customer lands on a site and decides to make a purchase, he or she must first click on a relevant link, and click-through rate depends on two important things — the meta title and the meta description. A short title and a description below it help users determine what’s on a particular website and whether they’ll find what they’re looking for there.
Metatags – what are they anyway?
Meta tags are tags designed to inform Google robots (indexing pages) and search engines about the content of this website. These tags are included in the HTML code in the head section. When it comes to positioning, the most important and most commonly used meta tags are:
- meta title – the title of the subpage, which can be seen in the browser tab and in the search engine results;
- meta description – a short description of the site and subpages. Its task is to inform about what is on the site. Often such descriptions contain keywords and a CTA (call to action);
- meta robots – a repeater that indexes information about the page (index / noindex).
What is a meta title?
As mentioned above, the meta title is the title of the page. Users see it both in search engine results and in an open browser tab. It is worth noting that you can see it perfectly in any web browser. The meta title together with the meta description is a kind of showcase of the website, which is designed to encourage users to go to a certain page. For many people, the title of the page is a kind of signpost that helps users decide in just a few seconds whether it is worth clicking on a given address and whether the site will have what they are looking for. Meta title is one of the most important HTML tags important for positioning. It is located at the beginning of the <head> fragment. The information contained in it is the most important information related to the website.
How long should the meta title be?
It is recommended that a meta-heading be between 60 and 70 characters long. However, it should be noted that each letter has a different width – so if you follow the rule about the number of characters, a title with 60 characters may be too long. For this reason, it is recommended to focus on pixels. In this case, the meta title should be a maximum of 600 pixels. It is impossible to independently determine whether this header meets the established limits, so it is worth using free websites that indicate the size of the meta header in HTML.
Which meta title matters for positioning?
An appropriate meta title means better visibility in search engine results, in addition, a well-chosen title encourages potential customers to click. Google’s robots value a clear message of content and an orderly structure. Sometimes even a small change in the name of a page can have a huge impact on its visibility in search engines, which in turn affects the number of visits.
