SEO Title Versus Meta Description Tag
-
From an SEO perspective, is the title tag more important than the description tag? We use a set format for these tags on our real estate web site. The site contains 300 listings.
Sample Title Tag:
Greenwich Village | Office Space Rental| 2300SF $9583/monthSample Description Tag:
Classic Greenwich Village office rental. Hardwood floors, 11' ceiling. 5 oversized windows. 24/7 attended lobby. Renovated common areas. Below market rent.Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by repeating the Square Footage and monthly rent amounts in the title tag? Should this tag be used for a short more descriptive terms so as to maximize the SEO benefit? Should these numbers be listed in the description tag? The listings are not heavily SEO optimized so I don't know whether this is really a non-issue.
-
Everyone is correct the Title Tag is more important than the description. You should also consider you H1 in context of your title tag as that is also important. On the description that has no or nominal SEO impact. So as Patrick states this is where you take the opportunity to focus on CTR or a CTA.
Your sample tag - does not include the brand name, so google will likely draw that in. So Patrick's suggestions should be considered Page | Category | Brand
I would think that you are shooting yourself in the foot including monthly figures and square foot in the title unless that is a key way people search for the space in the US - i would think Greenwich Village | Office Space Rental | Brand. That is what I would recommend. Cover suburb, geo-specific and key words office space and then brand...
I am not sure I would even list size etc in the description, but leave with you.
-
Yes, title tags are more important from an SEO perspective, but the real goal is to get people to do what the website is set up for, which in your case is rentals.
Rental pages by their nature are not evergreen (hopefully!), so getting interested buyers to click on a listing is more important than getting a page to rank well.
You do need to rank well enough so that people will see your results (so, first page, anyway) but I know that seeing square footage and pricing information right up front would certainly make me click on that result, even if it were lower on the page.
You could try splitting your listings and doing half with these details and half with descriptive keyword terms, and see what you get.
-
Hi there
Your title tag is substantially more important that your meta description, but keep in mind that meta descriptions are important for click through purposes.
I would research your audience and the content that they regularly digest so that you can name your titles (and format them) more appropriately. You want the most important information first, and branding last (in my opinion). I usually set up titles the following way:
Page | Brand
Category | Brand
Page | Category | BrandSome people do it differently, but make sure it's based on research and data - not just pulling out of thin air.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
In terms of what is right and wrong, don't just look at this from an SEO perspective, remember that you want something engaging to people seeing you in the SERPs. You want to get clicks - there is little point in having a good placement but you are putting potential visitors off.
Be as descriptive as possible, but without adding more in just for the sake of it. Sometimes a short title can be more effective than a longer one. Lots of people skim-read, so keep this in mind.
Add important information to both title and description as needed.
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Javascript and SEO
I've done a bit of reading and I'm having difficulty grasping it. Can someone explain it to me in simple language? What I've gotten so far: Javascript can block search engine bots from fully rendering your website. If bots are unable to render your website, it may not be able to see important content and discount these content from their index. To know if bots could render your site, check the following: Google Search Console Fetch and Render Turn off Javascript on your browser and see if there are any site elements shown or did some disappear Use an online tool Technical SEO Fetch and Render Screaming Frog's Rendered Page GTMetrix results: if it has a Defer parsing of Javascript as a recommendation, that means there are elements being blocked from rendering (???) Using our own site as an example, I ran our site through all the tests listed above. Results: Google Search Console: Rendered only the header image and text. Anything below wasn't rendered. The resources googlebot couldn't reach include Google Ad Services, Facebook, Twitter, Our Call Tracker and Sumo. All "Low" or blank severity. Turn off Javascript: Shows only the logo and navigation menu. Anything below didn't render/appear. Technical SEO Fetch and Render: Our page rendered fully on Googlebot and Googlebot Mobile. Screaming Frog: The Rendered Page tab is blank. It says 'No Data'. GTMetrix Results: Defer parsing of JavaScript was recommended. From all these results and across all the tools I used, how do I know what needs fixing? Some tests didn't render our site fully while some did. With varying results, I'm not sure where to from here.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nhhernandez1 -
Are keywords in the title tag becoming redundant?
I've noticed that lot's of the world's leading digital agencies are not using keywords in their titles. Eg AKQA, DigitasLBi, POKE, SYZYGY etc. Why is that? Are keywords no longer that important? This can't be accidental seeing as it's the case for so many leading agencies.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RRoginator0 -
Do I need to add the actual language for meta tags and description for different languages? cited for duplicate content for different language
Hi, I am fairly new to SEO and this community so pardon my questions. We recently launched on our drupal site mandarin language version for the entire site. And when i do the crawl site, i get duplicate content for the pages that are in mandarin. Is this a problem or can i ignore this? Should i make different page titles for the different languages? Also, for the metatag and descriptions, would it better in the native language for google to search for? thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lynetteboss0 -
Does >70 character title tag affect a pages ranking in search?
We are a publication that puts out hundreds of articles a month. We have +5000 medium priority errors showing that our title element tags are too long. The title tag is structured like this: [Headine] | [Publication Name that is 23 characters] . However, since we are a publication, it's not practical for us to try to limit the length of our title tags to 70 characters or less because doing so would make the titles of our content seem very unnatural. We also don't want to remove the branding because we want it to go with the article when it's shared (and to appear when some titles are short enough to allow room in SERPs). I understand the reasons for limiting characters to 70 or less with regard to SERP friendliness. We try to keep key phrases in the front. People are more likely to click on a page if they know what it's about etc etc. My question is, do the longer titles affect the ability for the page to rank in search? To put it a different way, if we altered all the +5000 of the title tags to fit within 70 characters, would the page authorities and our site's domain authority increase? I'd like to avoid needed to clean up 5000 pages if the medium priority errors aren't really hurting us. Any input is appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CatBrain1 -
Has anyone ever seen Google truncating the beginning of a meta description on a mobile device?
I could not find any articles or mentions of this online, and I am wondering if it has to do with the website being an "m-dot" website and not responsive. Any thoughts would be appreciated! IaZJWB2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | accpar0 -
What tags/coding are not good for SEO?
what tags/coding are not good for SEO? and also what tags not to include while creating website. For example - I read some where to avoid Span tag.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JordanBrown0 -
Title Tag Help
Hi everyone, So, I have some general question's about Title tags. My question's are as follows: 1. If i have a title tag like this 'Commercial bathroom instillation '. Will I show up for Commercial bathroom or Commercial bathroom instillation? The reason I ask is, i'm aiming for Commercial bathroom which has more search volume, but here is where the problem comes in. If I have Commercial bathroom instillation it is a more compelling title. Ideally i'm aiming for Commercial Bathroom, so im in a bit of a conundrum, as you can see. 2. My second question is if I have 'Bath Review and Shower review' for my title tag. Will I show up for Bath Review individually, and shower review individually, or only when someone search's that exact query? I hope that makes sense thanks. Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeterRota0