Page Title (Meta descriptions) length... how strict are you?
-
I have just had a conversation with a client... the gist was this...
Is it more important to stay under the 55-60 characters OR go over a bit and have the page title make sense and include the clients company name.
The same argument for meta description. I have a client insisting on 55-60 length but the keywords are long and if we use the primary keyword phrase the length is 44 if we use the keyword phrase and add the company name it becomes 64. This is with us trimming it a bit.
Anyone else discussed this before?
-
I'd tend to agree. It won't harm you to go over, but since no one's going to see it, what's the point, generally. Now, if you feel thinks are being cut off arbitrarily (like the name of a product) and those keywords should be included somehow, fine - go over the limit. You can potentially rank for those terms and they may show up in other places. Some directories, social networks, etc. read the title tags, too.
If it's just ego, though, like a long brand name, I'd suggest letting it go. Unless you're a really big brand, it's not going to matter that much, and you're likely to rank for your brand anyway. If the brand is getting cut off, then name recognition won't help your CTR anyway.
Usability research definitely shows that people pay much more attention to the front of a headline, and even just the first two words, so even if a longer title "makes sense", people may not care or even see it. So, sometimes, I think we obsess over getting something just right that may not end up mattering that much, practically.
Personally, I'd pick a different battle with the client, and maybe just keep a few long that are critically important.
-
FWIW, Google indexes title tags way beyond what it displays, possibly up to 164 characters. I've always considered that a valuable bit of intel to consider. (The post I linked to is ancient by SEO standards but I'd imagine it's still relevant, some nice work from Hugo Guzman.)
-
We discuss it all the time, good topic. The new WMT's search console has been enlightening. We have enough data to show that professional Titles, extended to or close to the maximum 512 pixels - has a better CTR on mobile than short or truncated versions. The Meta description is more important for desktop.
In short it it best to professionalize both. The Title can extend to 512 pixels before it truncates. There are a number of free tools where this can be measured prior to implementation. The meta description is not clear but up to 156 characters google seems comfortable in not truncating - however the meta description is more loosely used by google. Sometimes google insert a date .. and that undoes all the hard work.
In summary they are serious business and not to be taken lightly given the combined impact on seo and clickability. So in my view if the target client is mobile based stay within the 512 pixels. If desktop roll the dice...
Hope that assists.
-
To be honest, it does not make a huge difference. The reason for staying within the 55-60 character limit is so that your title does not get truncated in the SERPs. While it is not necessarily detrimental, it could impact click-through rates. Keep in mind - this limit is still not perfect. Depending on the pixel width of the letters used, you could still end up losing some of your title. Keep your keywords near the front, keep it natural, and you will be fine.
Tool for checking SERP titles: https://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool
As for company name, it really only helps if the company has strong brand recognition. If no one is performing searches based on or including their name...inserting it into every page will not help the cause. Generally speaking, a search for a company name will yield results including their website regardless of company name placement in their title/description tags. Stick it on the homepage, contact page, about us, etc. - otherwise focus on describing the intent of the page and let Google do its thing.
-
Title tags - put your main keywords for the page first, or near the beginning. That helps google know what the page is about. The number of characters varies as Google does not look at characters per se, but pixel width. Good article by Dr P.
https://moz.com/blog/new-title-tag-guidelines-preview-tool
You just have to watch what gets cut off at a certain point. Beyond that length the title is getting too long for readability anyway and if you need a longer title to explain a page, just put the longer one in the H1, but try and be sensible. If the client insists on putting the company name and you are not trying to rank for the company name just do something like
Keyword and keyword is really key here because it ranks good! | Company Name
The company name is at the end and will get hidden in the serps anyway, and you have your key word(s) or phrase in at the start.
Meta description is about conversion and click through rate vs ranking. Focus on getting the best call to action with a keyword somewhere in there first. I would say, this could be a good place to sneak in the company name, after you get your call to action right. Your limit is larger there (about 150-160) so you have more room before the cutoff. I tend to worry less about keywords and think about searcher intent and see if I can match that to get them to select my page among others in the search result. Another good article by Dr P
https://moz.com/blog/i-cant-drive-155-meta-descriptions-in-2015
Cheers!
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
-
Blank Title and Description Tags
Hi guys. Some times web platforms that I do work on have pages that I normally do not optimize. They more often than not have blank meta titles and meta descriptions. If I put titles and descriptions on these pages, no matter how minor, would it help the site as a whole to rank better? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | oomdomarketing0 -
My Meta Description changes when i use different keyword in google search.
Hello everyone, I have a question for the community. I have a website with several articles and news that i manage. I set specific meta descriptions for every page but when i search in google it gives me back different meta descriptions depending on the keyword that i use to search. What i notice is that google looks in my page for the most relevant part of the text that combines with my keyword and gives me back that result. I thought that this only happen when i have an empty meta description. Anyone felt the same ? Best Ricardo www.meuportalfinanceiro.pt
On-Page Optimization | | Adclick0 -
The seomoz on page keyword analysis tool is not showing title or keyword in document
the SEOMOZ onpage analysis tool is not not showing title or keyword for any page in one of my sites. It says there are no title elements on my page and there are, i checked the source code myself and they are there and correct. my title and keywords are in there and show up fine in firefox and internet explorer even after i refresh them. why would this tool show them as missing in one of my sites but not others? I'm worried that google's spider might not see them if the on page analyzer doesn't see them and my rankings might drop. they showed up the other day in the seomoz on page analyzer just fine and i haven't changed anything. Thanks mozzers!
On-Page Optimization | | Ron100 -
We have 5 postions on page 2 in a google search, but none on page 1\. How can we fix this?
For one of our most important key phrases we have 5 listings on page 2 but none on page 1. We are an ecommerce company, the key phrase we're trying for is a Top Level Category name for us, so the 5 links we have on googles second page for the key phrase (in order) are the appropriate top level category page, the sites home page and than three sub categories of that top level category. So while that all makes sense, can't we convince google to concentrate all that link power/juice into just the top level category page? Hopefully bumping it to first page rank? The 5 ranks are 11-15
On-Page Optimization | | absoauto0 -
SEO Moz crawl has 3 missing page title errors when they are clearly there.
My SEO Moz crawl today has highlighted for errors where page titles are empty missing. For example: http://www.musicliveuk.com/live-acts/hire-wedding-entertainment/wedding-entertainment-kent This page clearly has a title as do the other 3. Is it a bug in the system or am I missing something?
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
Do product pages need unique content or does having duplcate content hurt on those pages?
We are adding product rapidly to our website but this requires allowing duplicate to exist on our product pages of furniture-online.com. From an SEO standpoint do we need to make this content unique for each product. Since we aren't link building to specific product pages and we don't anticipate product pages being found in a search result, are we ok leaving the duplicate content in place and spending our dollars elsewhere?
On-Page Optimization | | gallreddy0 -
What are the benefits of targeting one keyword phrase per page vs. multiple keywords per page
What are the benefits of optimizing a page for one keyword phrase versus a group of similar keywords, like this one that Rand posted on another blog entry http://bit.ly/7LzTxY: Ted Baker Ted Baker London Ted Baker Clothing Ted Baker Mens Ted Baker Mens Clothing Ted Baker Mens Collection
On-Page Optimization | | EricVallee340