My Take On Titles and Meta Data

I was talking to a client today about how we would help them with their SEO. I explained that there are two parts to SEO; 1. onsite SEO and 2. offsite SEO. This didn’t make any sense to him so I opened his site and started showing him some of the elements of onsite SEO…starting with the Title and Meta data.

Learn basic Title Tag and Meta Data Info Here
Learn basic Title Tag and Meta Data Info Here

This whole idea was foreign to him so I covered it for him and then taught him the value of it along with offsite SEO and he was basically sold on what we are doing to help and excited about the marketing they are now going to be offering.

This lead to me think that there might be many of you out there with similar questions so I decided to answer the question he gave me…”what is a title and meta description”. Below is my take on how these elements fit into your overall SEO plan and a brief overview of what each should be.

Title

Your title is the most important element of your page. You must include it and optimize it if you want to have a chance at ranking for the important keywords you are targeting for that given page. Your title should be about 3-5 keywords in length and can be limited to that only as there is no need to waste that valuable space with anything else. If you were targeting the softball arena on your page here is a sample of what your title might be:

Softball Bat | Softball Equipment | Softball Players | Softball Jersey

That would be it. You don’t need to use the |bar| and you can write it more like a sentence if you want and you especially don’t want to load it up with anything other than the words you are targeting and be specific.

Meta Description

Your meta description is still important to a point because many engines still use it to serve as your description in their engine. Therefore, you want to fill it out with regards to your targeted keywords for that page. It should be around 25-30 words in length. Another softball related example:

At “domain.com” we offer the best quality softball bats and softball equipment. Get your softball jersey and other gear for any and all softball players.

Meta Keywords

This section is the least important by far of these sections. Some will say, don’t bother filling it out, but I teach that you want to fill it out in the right way or it will hurt you a bit. Limit this section only to the keywords you are targeting for that page and keep it simple. Don’t fall victim to your desire to load this section up. Example for the page we have been using as an example

softball bat, softball equipment, softball players, softball jersey

That is it. Don’t load it up anymore for this given page and you’ve done it right.

Conclusion

I hope this helps provide you with some concrete examples and guides to assist you with writing your page title and meta data.

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