Today we are talking about meta titles. And honestly, if you only fix one thing on your website this week, make it this.
A meta title is THE most important part of on page SEO. Not your colours, not your clever images, not even that long blog post you wrote. It is the blue clickable headline people see in Google before they decide whether you are worth a click.
So what is it really?
It is a tiny bit of HTML that lives in the head of your page. Looks like this:
<head>
<title>SEO for Beginners | Simple Guide to Getting Started</title>
</head>
That is it. One line, massive impact.
Why does Meta Title matter so much?
Two reasons, basically.
Google reads it to work out what your page is about. So your main keyword needs to be in there, sat near the front, sounding natural. Please do not cram in ten keywords. It looks desperate and Google wont like it.
The second reason is people. Even if you rank beautifully, a dull title means nobody bothers clicking. And no clicks means no traffic, which kind of defeats the point of the whole exercise.
What makes a good Meta Title?
Keep it roughly 50 to 60 characters so it does not get chopped off mid sentence. Lead with the important words. Give the reader a reason to click. And make every single page on your site a unique one, no lazy copy and paste jobs.
Quick example of the idea in action: someone searches beginner SEO tips, sees a clear promising title, clicks, lands on your page. Simple.
Final thought.
If your on page SEO were a house, the meta title is the front door. Get that right and everything else gets a whole lot easier.
Want to learn more?
Check our introduction to keywords and and our guide to internal linking. You’re welcome 🙂