How to Write Inviting Title and Meta Tags that Capture the Clicks

Title and Meta Tags to get the SEO clicks

Coming up in the search results is one thing. Getting people to click over to your website is another. Here’s where the title and meta tags come in. Search engine optimization’s (SEO) job is to get your website to show in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) when a human searcher is looking for what you have to offer. The Title and Meta Tags’ job is to entice them to click on the link so they visit your website.

Why are they important? You want sales, right? Or to generate leads. Those are conversions. You’re converting a visitor into a sale or a lead. You can’t have conversions if you don’t have visitors! Furthermore, you can’t have visitors if the potential customer doesn’t click through to your website. You can’t lose them at the SERP. They’ll go to a competitor!

First, I’ll define the terms and then I’ll share some tips on how to craft them so your potential customer or client will actually click on it.

What is a Title Tag?

It is where you write the title of a webpage or blog article. It appears in the tab and at the very top of the browser and shows at the top of the page. It’s also the first thing that the search engine sees when it’s crawling your site, as well as the first thing a human searcher sees when they’re looking for what you have to offer.

Title tag appears at the top of the browser.
Title of a blog post.

What is a Meta Tag?

The Meta Tag is a short 2-3 sentence description of the content of the page or blog post. The search engine uses this to determine how relevant it is to the search phrase entered and the human searcher uses it to decide whether the website contains what he or she is looking for.

SEO by Yoast Google snippet preview.
This is a screenshot of the SEO by Yoast free WordPress plugin which helps you optimize each page and blog article.

Notice that the featured image also comes up, which helps catch the searcher’s eye. Moreover, red, yellow, and orange are more eye-catching colors. If you have a WordPress website, the free, SEO by Yoast plugin, guides you in creating the most optimized title and meta tags. As you can see, the title is also your headline. I’ve covered how to optimize that in this article.

Here are tips on how to optimize those Meta Tags to get those clicks….

SEO by Yoast Title and Meta tags preview.
SEO by Yoast plugin example.
  1. The Key Phrase. This is the main topic of your page or blog post. It should be one or two words. For instance, in the example pictured, the keyword phrase was “video marketing”. It needs to be both in the title, the slug, which is the URL or link, as well as the meta description. This is for the SEO and it also needs to make sense to the human.
  2. Meta Description Length. Ideally, it should be 160 characters. Anything longer than that may get cut off. The Yoast plugin will let you know if it’s too long by the color line under it. Orange is too short, red, too long, and green just right. Look at the preview and be sure that you don’t see the ellipsis (…) at the end of the meta tag.
  3. The Description. Here’s where you need to put yourself in your target reader’s shoes. They are looking for an answer to their problem. You don’t want to give the WHOLE answer here, but just enough so they can see that…
    • It’s what they need or want
    • The website holds more valuable information
    • It will behoove them to click on it. In other words, there’s a benefit to them clicking on through to the website.

What if you don’t have a WordPress Website?

If you are on a platform other than WordPress, more than likely, there is a place for you to enter the meta description of a page or blog post. It’s usually under a section called “SEO”.

What if there is no meta tag?

I found what I needed!
I found what I needed!

If there is no meta tag, the search engine will display the first paragraph. Obviously, that brings up the question — is the first paragraph on your page or blog enticing enough to keep the reader reading?

“What’s in it for me?

That’s what the searcher is thinking. What’s in it for me? Does this website have what I need or want? Does it answer my question? Will the information go deeper than just the answer to the question?

There are two, free tools that I use to test to see if the title and meta tags are working: Google Analytics Search Console and Ubersuggest. You’ll see how many times your website comes up for certain keywords and phrases and how many clicks it got. Obviously, if your site is brand new, you won’t have this. That’s why you have to have your Google Analytics set up before you start any marketing efforts.

As you can see, there are a lot of moving parts in digital marketing. Yes, it takes some time and effort to get everything set up and running smoothly. Nevertheless, with the right goal-setting, strategic and tactical planning, you should start seeing results in 2-3 months. Each business is different and there is no one-size-fits-all marketing strategy. If you need some guidance on what will work for your business, let’s schedule a free 15-minute phone consult and I’ll review your current marketing efforts and see how I can help you grow your business.


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