Are Page Titles and Custom Meta Descriptions Important?

A big topic of discussion these days is, “how can I improve my SEO?” While there are many different tips and tricks depending on who you talk to, a good starting place is making sure every page on your website has a page title and custom meta description.

Page Titles

Page titles are how your pages show up in search results pages such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing and are one of the most important ranking factors for search engines, therefore they significantly impact your SEO.

When you set your  page titles, they should give a brief overview of the content a user can expect when clicked. It is also wise to keep page titles less than 60 characters long because typically Google displays the first 60 characters on search results pages. Therefore, having titles that are less than 60 characters ensures that users can read the entire title on Google search results pages.

Page Title Example

Meta Descriptions

Furthermore, setting custom meta descriptions is also wise. So what is a meta description? Well, when you search for something on Google, the descriptions under the search results (page titles) are known as meta descriptions. They are a snippet of information about the page. Therefore, having a custom meta description ensures that users are reading the most valuable summary of that page, handcrafted by you!

Custom Meta Description Example

Conclusion

If your site doesn’t currently have page titles or custom meta descriptions, a web developer can help you determine the best approach for adding them to your site. They may also recommend plugins that analyze the impact your page titles and custom meta descriptions will have on improving your SEO.

If you would like to see if the pages on your site have page titles and custom meta descriptions, check out our Caffeine Website Analyzer tool.

If you would like to learn more about how to optimize your website, check out our post on “How Fast Does Your Site Load?”