Creating Killer Titles and Description Meta Tags

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Recently I was working on a new project and I was having writer’s block when it came to setting up title and description tags for the project. To me.these tags might be is a very most important part. These two tags can be seen in the search (SERP) results, and this is where you need to have killer titles and descriptions for your websites and pages.

Think of these tags as free advertising for your site. When a users does a search for keywords for your page’s topic and the results pull your page, all they see is your title and description. Since this is the only thing separating you and the user clicking on your link, you need to create copy that will make users want to click on your link and see what its all about. So if you think of creating copy for these tags as a text add, then you can’t have writer’s block or if you do, you got to get rid of it before your site goes live.

So after so time brainstorming, I found several ideas for titles and descriptions and wasn’t sure which one was going to be the right fit for the site. So I decided to take a break and think about it. So during one my surfing sessions, I came across a useful SEO tool call the Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool. Once I figuredout what it did and what it can for a website owner, I started testing the tool.

What is Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool?

Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool is designed for webmasters and content publishers to create titles and descriptions for your title and description title tag. This tool helps by creating a Google search results like environment so you can see what your title and description might look like on the Google Search Results pages.

This tool can be configured to show the title, description, URL, publish date, bold keywords, similar pages, and sponsored links. Of course, everything created here, is simulated and not real.

All you have to do is enter in a title, description, and select what features you want to display. Once you have everything setup, everything will display as it will look to a user searching for your keywords.

Below is a test run I did to see how the tool works, when you keep your title and description under the character length.

Below is a test of what you will see if your title and description is to long.

Title and Description Meta Tag Maximum Length

When creating titles and descriptions, search engines can only show a certain amount of characters for each results. If your results are longer then the search engine’s max length, then your results will be cut short. At the end of the title or description or they could be both to long, you will see this at the end of the title and description(…).

• Max length for the Title tag is 70 characters including spaces.
• Max length for the description is 140. The actual length is a little longer (156)

Note: Descriptions do not have a max length, but Google search engine will only display up to 156 characters. But other search engines might show more or less and if there is additional information that the search can display, they will include this in the 156 length. So to be on the safe side, Try and keep your description at 139/140 characters in length.

Final Thoughts

I have tested several different titles and descriptions, including ones that were previously created and are live. Testing those pages with Google SERP Snippet Optimization Tool worked great and they matched up to what Google results displays. This tool will not create titles and descriptions for you, but, it will help you see what your newly created titles and descriptions will look like before your site or articles go live. If you do not like the way yours looks after you load it into the tool, then you can change it before the search engines can even crawl it.

Disclaimer from Google SERP Snippet Optimization Website

I copied this directly from the website. Please see the complete article to use the tool and see the explanation of how the tool works.

“This snippet tool and the content of this website are not affiliated with Google nor endorsed by them. The Google logo and any other trademarks owned by Google contained herein are used for educational/non-commercial purposes only. I have made every effort to replicate the appearance of Google’s search results as accurately as possible, however the information on this website is provided “as is” without any representations or warranties, express or implied.”