Meta Descriptions and Browser Titles - Important for SEO

Search Engine Description and Browser Title, known as Metadata, are essential for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

One of the greatest things about SiteCM is that it provides you with immediate access to metadata for your pages. There is no need to hunt around your website in order to locate these important page properties. They are found within the SiteCM page editor for any page you create.

Let's take a look at two of the most important page metadata properties, related to website SEO:

• A website page's browser description, and;
• A website page's browser title.

What is a Browser Title?

A page's browser title, otherwise known as a 'title tag' is one of the key elements of your website page. It is very important to search engines, like Google. Browser titles help the search engine understand what the page is about. Browser titles also give users a quick insight into the content of the webpage and how it relates to their search query on Google. Your webpage browser titles appear in browser tabs, and are read by search engines. 

To optimize your website page's browser title, try to reflect the first Heading 1 title that appears within your website page's content. Your webpage browser titles benefit the page when they contain relevant keywords (or keyword phrases) related to the pages' content. Browser titles should be less than 70 characters long so that the whole tag fits on search engine result pages, letting people read them at a quick glance. Also place important keywords closer to the front of the browser title so they are read first. Search engines will bold or highlight those terms in their search results too. 

What is a Search Engine Description?

A webpage's search engine description, otherwise known as a "metadata description tag", is also one of the key elements of your website page. It appears only in HTML code, and is the first introduction and point of contact to page content for a search engine. A search engine description generally appears in search results below your webpages' browser titles. This is dependent on a user's search query. Google for example may instead return a portion of your website page content in search results, highlighting portions of it that relate to the users search query, over returning the webpage's search engine description. While search engine descriptions are not highly related to search engine ranking, they are still important to search engine result pages. 

To optimize your webpage search engine descriptions, try to keep them down in character counts between 130 & 160 characters. Mobile based search results will truncate these descriptions beyond 130 characters, while desktop search results typically truncate after 160 characters. Make your page descriptions keyword rich, choosing unique words which highlight the most important aspects of the page itself. In other words, sell the benefit of visiting the page without going overboard. The description you use should ideally target the unique topic of the website page it represents. Finally, Google recommends using site - level descriptions on your home page, and page - level descriptions everywhere else. 

How do I edit my webpage Search Engine Descriptions and Browser Titles?

These essential properties are found on the Metadata tab in the page editor when editing your website's page in SiteCM. The Metadata tab is located next to the page's Content tab. So, the moment you feel content with the great content you've added to your website page, it's time to optimize its metadata.

Note: The image above also shows the location of the Search Engine Keywords field for your website page. This field is used to provide the page with metadata keywords, read by smaller search engines like Yahoo, or Bing. Keywords are not read by the Google Search engine, and were therefore not discussed in this article.

We hope that you found this article helpful. If you need a hand, please sign up for our free webinar: Better SEO - Optimizing your Website Pages for Search Engines, scheduled for Tuesday April 30^th, 2019. We look forward to seeing you there!