The title tag determines the name of a web page as it appears in Google. The content of the title tag plays an important part in the ranking a page gets in Google and Bing.

2. What is a description tag?

The description tag is a text of maximum 155 characters long that says what a page is about. Because Google often shows the description tag, it’s a great tool to persuade people to visit your page.

In our article ‘what is a description tag and why is it so important’ you can read in detail what Google does with the description tag and when it is and isn’t shown.

3. Title and description tag create the first impression

When making a website, a lot of attention always goes to the look & feel of the website in general and to the homepage in particular. While this is certainly very important, it’s not true that you need to do this in order to ‘make a good first impression’.

For more than half of your visitors, their first contact with you is not your homepage. Or any other page of your website, for that matter. The first contact, the first impression, is made by the title and description tag shown in Google.

4. How can you find out what your title and description tags are?

There are lots of seo-programmes that can do this for you. But there’s also Google. Just type in ’site:’ followed by your domain name and you’ll get the complete list of the title and description tags of all your pages.

On the international website of Citroën, there’s room for improvement. The title tags are clearly not specific enough. For the description tag, they seem to have written some fluffy marketing nonsense and used that for most pages.

5. Tips for the perfect title tag

If you read our article 8 tips for the perfect title tag you should be well on your way to writing great title tags.

While you’re at it, have a look at our 4 examples of clumsy title tags too. Just so you know what not to do.

6. Tips for the perfect description tag

The description tag does not influence your ranking in Google. But it is essential to get people to click on your page, as this interesting user behaviour study on search engine results pages shows.

These 12 tips for the perfect description tag will help you write great description tags that will get more visitors to your pages.

7. How to track down doubles in your title or description tags?

Google doesn’t like title tags or description tags that are the same for more than one page of your website. It’s clear why: Google uses the title and description tags to find out whether or not a page has unique content.

The first thing you need to do is make sure every page of your website has a unique title and description tag.

The Google Webmaster Tools can help you track down doubles in your title or description tags.

Log in to Google Webmaster Tools and select your website (or add your website if you haven’t done that yet). Go to the left menu, click on ‘Diagnostics’ and then on ‘HTML suggestions’.

The report on this page gives you access to double tags and it also shows you the title and description tags that are too long or too short.

Do you know of any other best practices, tools or studies on the importance of the title or description tag? Please share them in the comments.

Letting people know which site they’re on and where they are on that site is pretty basic usability stuff, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important.

1. Logo and company name in top left corner

Put your logo in the top left corner. If your logo doesn’t contain your company name, put your name directly underneath the logo. Do this on every page. That way, people immediately know whose website they’re on.

Don’t think putting your logo on the right side will make you special. Sure, you’ll be different, but not in a way people appreciate. You’re just making it harder for them to know which website they’re on.

Ogilvy puts its logo in the bottom right corner. Because that’s not where people expect it to be, it will take them longer to see it.

Not mentioning your name or logo at all is of course not the greatest idea either.

Without a logo or name in the top left corner, it’s not easy for visitors to know they’re on the website of the Museum for Industrial Archeology and Textile (MIAT) in Ghent.

2. Breadcrumb

A great way to let users know where they are on your website, is via a breadcrumb. A breadcrumb shows you where you are on a website by visualizing the site’s hierarchy, from the homepage to the current page.

You can find more details on what a good breadcrumb looks like in our article ‘Breadcrumb: 7 tips’.

3. Clearly visible page title

A page title has to stand out. Use a larger font size and perhaps even a different colour than your regular text colour.

Put the page title always in the same, clearly visible place: at the top of the content part of the page, left-aligned.

Use the same term as the one you use in your menu, or at least start the page title in the same way. Inconsistencies can be confusing.

The Belgian province Flemish Brabant puts the page title or header where it should be: at the top left of the page’s content part, in a larger font size and different colour than the regular text.

4. Navigation: active item in a different colour

Navigation plays a very important part in telling people where they are on a website.

An easy way to show users what main and sub-category of the navigation they’re in is putting the active category in a different (background) colour.

On the site of Amnesty International it’s very clear which main and sub-category of the navigation the user is in.

5. Title tag

Another small but not unimportant element that can help users determine where they are on a website is the title tag.

But thanks to our ‘8 tips for the perfect title tag‘ you already know everything about that.

Which provides us with a good excuse to also show you some examples of what not to do.

1. The root of all evil

2. Must remember to enter title tag. Very important!

3. Final countdown? Final homapge!

4. Friendly, but not really saying much

As you can see, our 8 tips for the perfect title tag could be useful for some people.

Have you seen a title tag that made you laugh? Or cry?

Share it in the comments or email me.

The title tag determines the name of a web page. Title tags are mostly visible in Google and in the browser.

Google
The page title Google shows is a page’s title tag. The same goes for Bing.

Browser
The title tag appears in the browser title bar and the browser tabs. When you add a page to your favorites or when you share a page via social media, the title tag is what apppears as the page title.

Is the title tag important?

You bet it is. The title tag is one of the most important things to get right if you want to do well in Google. It’s not the only thing but if you neglect your title tags you’re making it very hard on yourself.

Tips for a good title tag

1. Use no more than 66 characters

• Search engines only show a limited number of characters of the title tag. Google shows the first 66 characters. After that, it simply adds an ellipsis (…). If you want your title tags to look professional, don’t use more than 66 characters.
• Short titles are easier to read than long ones.
• The less words there are in your title tag, the more value Google attributes to each word. As a consequence, it’s easier for a keyword to score well in a title tag of 4 words than it is in a title tag of 8 words. This is called keyword density.

2. Make sure your title tag accurately describes your page

• The title tag should contain the keyword you want to score with for that page.
• Make sure you use that keyword somewhere on the page itself.
• Use a keyword your visitors use. It’s nice to do well in Google but if it’s with a word nobody uses it’s not really going to do you any good.

3. Think about what you want the page to do

• Make sure the title tag and content of the page correspond with the reasons people visit that page.
  ‘Netbooks: reviews of the fastest models’ will appeal to a different audience and create different expectations than ‘Cheap netbooks’.

4. Put the keyword first

• Google reportedly attributes more value to the first word in a title tag than the last one.
• Jakob Nielsen’s research shows that the first 11 characters determine whether someone continues to read on or not.

5. Don’t forget to mention your brand name

• Putting your brand name in the title tag isn’t all that important if you’re a small company. But if you’re one of the leading players in your field, it’s a good idea to mention your brand name in your title tags.
• Wa advise most companies to put their brand name last. Only on your homepage should your brand name be first.
• If you’re an absolute top brand that the majority of people knows and trusts, it can be interesting to start your title tags with your brand name.

6. Separate your brand name from the page title

• Use a vertical dash (|) or hyphen (-) to separate your brand name from the actual page title.

7. Write attractive title tags

• If you stuff the title tag full of keywords, you’ll probably score well in Google. But it will make your title tag unattractive and people won’t click on it. So you’re kind of missing the point.
• For a lot of people, the title tag is their first introduction to your brand. Make sure you make a good first impression.
• Your web page’s title tag appears in a list with other search results. Make sure it stands out.

8. Unique for every page

• Each page of your web site should have a unique title tag. If you can’t decide what a page is really about, how is Google supposed to know?

How can you adapt your title tags?

That depends on your website. Hopefully, you’re using a content management system (CMS) that lets you adapt the title tag of every page manually.

If you’re choosing a new CMS, make sure it allows you to do that. If you want to do well in Google, it’s vital.

More tips?

Do you have some more tips for good title tags? Feel free to add them in the comments section.