In order for the site to display as correctly as possible in search engines and display only useful information, there is such a tool as the Title meta tag. It is on him that Internet users first look when they go to any search engine.
What is this tag
Meta tags, including Title, are designed to provide information about the structure of a web page. They are indicated in the <head> block at the top of the HTML document.
They are placed in the body of the document in this way:
<!DOCTYPE HTML> <html> <head> <title> </title> <meta name="description" content=" "> <meta name="keywords" content=" - "> </head> <body> ... </body> </html>
For the user, they are mainly not visible - they contain information intended for search engines and robots, with their help the developer tells the system what information is contained on his page. The only visible meta tag is Title. This is the title of a website or page, which is of great importance when ranking pages in search engines.
Why you should pay attention to the title tag
Since search robots index the HTML version of the page, including its service content, the Title meta tag cannot be ignored - its proper filling will help to get to the top of the search line and also facilitate the user's work with the site.
This meta tag is technically a separate tag, which distinguishes it from Descriptions and Keywords - it has closing and opening parts, with the following syntax:
<title></title>
It is visible to the user, and its contents are displayed on the top tab. If you move the mouse cursor over it, you can see a detailed description, that is, everything that we put in this tag. This is very convenient for the user if several tabs are open in the browser at once.
Also, this particular tag will be shown in the search results as the site title, so it should not contain any "garbage" elements that interfere with normal perception.
Filling the <title> tag
In order to achieve successful placement of a link to a page in search results, you need to know how to correctly write the Title meta tag, and what information should be entered into it, and which will be superfluous.
To begin with, you should know that the content of this tag directly affects the ranking of the page in the search engine, and together with the Description tag it allows the search system to generate a snippet - the text that the user sees when he views the search page.
Rules and recommendations
You can derive the following basic rules on how to fill out the Title meta tag:
- It should be directly related to the subject of the resource.
- It contains the main keyword related to this site.
- It is important that the information indicated in the tag is easy for the user to perceive - it should not contain unreadable text.
- The Title meta tag should not coincide with the main H1 headings located on the web page.
- A separate Title tag is created and populated for each page.
- The optimal length for this tag is no more than 70 characters. This amount should not be greatly exceeded, because in this case the search snippet may not display correctly.
- Overloading the tag with keys should not be - a glut of keywords adversely affects the readability of the text and prevents the site from rising high in search results.
- There should not be unnecessary information - what data to enter when filling out the tag, we will describe further.
- It is necessary to pay special attention to the uniqueness of this tag - its absence prevents the page from getting into the top of search engine results.
Let's take a closer look at the main points and determine how to correctly fill in the Title meta tag.
Tag information
In order for the tag to work correctly on the ranking of pages in the search engine, you need to consider exactly what information gets into it.
Please note that in different browsers the information will be displayed differently, so it is better to limit yourself to the optimal length of the content. The data will coincide with the basic requests of the user, so the keywords should be indicated as the main ones, and the content should be left as capacious as possible, but concise.
The main components that the Title meta tag should contain:
- The name of the service or product that you offer. It is desirable for him to settle down at the very beginning.
- The conversion unit is a call to action for the user. It may contain words such as “purchase,” “watch,” “download,” and the like.
- Location - where the product or service is located geographically.
- The name of the company or service provider itself - it is better to place it at the end of the description.
- Dots should not be used in the tag, and if you need to use a punctuation character such as a dash, it is better to replace it with a colon, so you can use one extra useful character.
- To separate the semantic blocks of text, a vertical bar is used within the meta tag. It will look something like this: "Making home furniture is simple and affordable | Do it yourself furniture" (it is written without quotes in the tag itself).
- There is no dot at the end, however, you can use the exclamation point if the text logically contains a call to action or is expressive.
In order to figure out which keywords are better to add to the Title tag, it is best to use the services from Google and Yandex - Google AdWords and Yandex Word Selection, respectively.
Meta tags for product descriptions
Often you need to register meta tags when creating cards with a description of the goods, for example, in an online store.
When filling out the meta tags Title and Description for the product, it is better to adhere to the following recommendations:
The Description tag indicates the main content showing the search engine what this page is about. It is a snippet.
For each product page, specify a separate tag, for example:
<title> 5 </title> <title> 3 </title>
These two tags will be located on different pages for each product separately.
The same principle applies to the different numbered pages of the site.
Title and Description meta tags must not match each other.
For products, tags are formed from the most common queries for the most common search engines.
They must be specific and correspond to reality, that is, display exactly the product that is stated in the description.
When describing products, it is especially important to understand how to correctly write the Title meta tag, because in this case the description should be as short as possible, but reflecting the main point, otherwise it can negatively affect the conversion.
For the template for the product card in the online store, you can take the following design:
Title: Name and brief description of the goods in the card + cost + location
A few words about other meta tags
SEO-optimization involves several basic meta tags that open up the possibilities for promoting pages in search engines. These are the Title, Keywords, and Description meta tags. They are also located in the <head> block in the body of the html document.
We have already considered the Title - it sets the website title directly in the search engines.
Description contains a description of the information on the site and is responsible for compiling the snippet. It is important to remember that the snippet (a brief description of the site directly in the search engine) will not be static, it will vary depending on the system and the search query. Its main purpose is to interest the user in going to the site you need.
The Keywords tag contains a list of the main keywords that are located on the desired page. With its help, the search engine issues the site to the appropriate search engine for the necessary queries.
Next, we’ll look at how to correctly fill in the Description, Keywords, and Title meta tags so that the site has an effective conversion in search engines.
Filling Descriptions Tag
As already mentioned, the main task of this tag is to create an attractive snippet for the user, which will encourage the user to go to the right site.
This tag is located in the same place as the other meta tags in the <head> tag and has the following syntax:
<html> <head> <meta name="description" content=" ." /> </head> </html>
When filling out this tag, it is better to adhere to the following recommendations:
- The content should be concise, but at the same time as readable as possible. It’s best to express the main point in a summary of the basic information of the page, dividing it into a few simple sentences, or arrange a greeting that will attract the user (it’s better to post it on the main page of the site or the author’s blog).
- The description in the tag should fully correspond to the content of the site.
- It is necessary to achieve the maximum uniqueness of the description, otherwise the site will not get on the first pages of search engines.
- The presence or absence of keys in this meta tag has little effect on the content of the page, unlike the title meta tag, where they must be specified without fail.
- Place the most important data closer to the beginning or the middle of the description, because in different browsers and search engines the display format of the snippet may differ, and in some cases the last few words are cropped, so the user may not receive any important data.
Let's move on to the description of the rules for filling out the Keywords tag.
How to fill in the Keywords tag
This tag contains the main keywords by which the site appears in the search results. It will look like this:
<meta name="keywords" content=" ">
Previously, this tag had a great influence on search engines, but this led to the fact that developers and optimizers began to abuse it by inserting keys that were not related to the content of the site to rank their pages high. Because of this, over time, Google refused to use the information related to this tag by its search robots, but a large search engine like Yandex still ranks sites for this tag. The degree of influence is not so great, but they should not be completely neglected.
What is the best way to fill out this tag:
- Do not use a large number of keywords - the ideal number will be from 3 to 15.
- One word spam is not welcome; keys must be different.
- It is also important for this tag to keep track of the uniqueness of the prescribed content.
- This tag is not used for pages that carry service information that are not intended for ranking by search engines.
Having considered all the main meta tags that affect the location of the site in the search results, let us return to the Title tag.
An example of correctly composed meta tags
In order to understand what exactly the final result should look like in the body of an HTML document, let's look at an example of a Title meta tag in use with other meta tags.
<head> <title>SEO- . | . . (495) 123-45-67</title> <meta name="description" content="SEO- . ! "/> <meta name="keywords" content="SEO-, , , , " /> </head>
As you can see, in the Title we made a heading that gives basic information about the service provided, the logical blocks are separated by a vertical bar.
The description (meta description tag) contains the text that will be located in the corresponding snippet on the search results page. It includes reliable data, not overloaded with unnecessary information.
The last meta tag contains the main keywords, separated by commas.
Finally
So, we have examined the basic concepts that will help even those who have not previously encountered website promotion and SEO optimization to prepare their site for posting on the web and ranking by search engines.
Given our recommendations, you can achieve good results, and the page will be able to get on the first pages of search engines.