What is in a Name: The Importance of Meta Titles, Page Headings and Descriptions in SEO

Optimising your website for success in the search engine rankings is a continuous task where no one element is signifi cantly more important than any other. Regardless of which elements are held aloft as “vital to your website’s success”, SEO is a complete package, dependant on getting every little aspect just right.

In previous articles we have concentrated on the tasks involved in improving your ‘off-site’ seo, such as article submission and building links back to your site. However, the work that you do on your actual web site and pages is just as important.

How to Create the Perfect Meta Title

A web-user’s experience of your website begins with them seeing your site’s meta title in the search engine page results, so it’s essential that you get it right! A good rule of thumb to follow is Page focus | brand name.

You have approximately 65 characters with which to grab and maintain attention. Meta titles can be much longer than this, but it is not recommended. No one will read much beyond 65 characters and seeing a long line of text will put people off reading it. It really needs to be something short and snappy, but which also includes their search keywords. If you come across a webpage which clearly promises exactly what you just searched for, then you are more likely to click on it.

Very few companies sell only one product or service. As a result, there are a lot of potential keyword phrases which you will want to include in your meta title to attract potential customers. Another best practice to follow is having one keyword phrase per page and making sure that you include this keyword phrase in your meta title. You can also use a vertical bar (|) to list multiple phrases in your meta title, this helps to keep them better spaced and more professional in appearance than a comma.

How to Create the Perfect Meta Description

Once you’ve caught your potential clicker’s attention with a catchy meta title, you need to hold their attention long enough to get them onto your website. You achieve this with an interesting, relevant and keyword-rich meta description. This is the text which appears below the meta title in search results and gives a clearer description of the page. Again, this needs to be short and snappy as you are limited in length, but also needs to clearly demonstrate that your page is professionally built and will give the customer exactly what they are hoping for. It should include a description of your services and a call to action to more directly encourage users to click on your link.

How to Create the Perfect Page

Finally, once you’ve got the click which gets the user onto your site, you need to convert it into a purchase, sign-up or however else you rate a successful conversion. Interesting, relevant copy delivered with perfect spelling, punctuation and grammar and in short, readable paragraphs is the key to web content which is likely to be read and trusted, though a professional-looking page design has an extraordinary effect, too. All pages should have at least one image to catch readers’ attention and this image should be highlighted to search engines with an image tag, this is wording hidden behind the image which is only visible to search engines. Before you go paying for a revolutionary new page design, though, bear in mind that the simplest of alterations can have a remarkable impact on the user’s impression of your company. Making the page headings bold, clear and uniform, for example, is an incredibly simple yet often overlooked measure. Setting the headings to the H1 heading preset will take you less than a couple of minutes per page, but can have a noticeable effect. PPCnSEO is able to provide the full package, from meta title maintenance to quality content and page design, giving you very the best chance at high search engine rankings, clicks and conversions.