Title tag and meta description: length, examples and how to get more clicks

What the title tag and meta description are

The title tag names your page. Google uses it as one of the signals for what a page is about, and it’s usually shown as the clickable headline in search results, in browser tabs and when someone shares a link.

The meta description is a short summary of the page. It’s not a ranking factor, but it often becomes the grey text below the headline. Together they decide whether someone who sees your result actually clicks it – the click-through rate (CTR) you see in Search Console.

One thing you can ignore: the meta keywords tag. Google doesn’t use it, so you don’t need to fill it in.

Both tags belong in the <head> section of every page. Most CMS and shop systems have fields for them (often called “SEO title” and “meta description”), so you rarely need to edit HTML by hand. In the page source it looks like this:

<head>
  <title>Sourdough bread for beginners: step-by-step recipe | Example Bakery</title>
  <meta name="description" content="Bake your first sourdough loaf: a simple recipe with exact amounts, a weekend timeline and photos of every step. Ready in about 24 hours.">
</head>

How long should they be?

Google cuts titles by width in pixels, not by a fixed number of characters. On desktop the limit is around 600 pixels, which is about 50–60 characters. A title made of wide letters gets cut sooner than one with many narrow letters, so treat 60 characters as a guideline, not a hard rule.

Meta descriptions are usually cut after about 150–160 characters. On mobile the visible text can be a bit shorter or longer depending on the device.

Length matters less than order. Put the most important words at the start of both tags, so the essential part survives even if the rest is cut. A longer title isn’t a problem as such – it just shouldn’t hide the key information at the end.

How to write a good title

A good title tells the searcher in a few words that this page answers exactly their question. These rules cover most cases:

• Start with the main search term people actually use, in their words, not your internal product name.
• Make it specific: “Sourdough bread for beginners” beats “Recipes”.
• Add a reason to click when it fits: a benefit, a number, the year for topics that change, “free”, “step by step”.
• Put your brand at the end, separated by “|” or “–”, unless the brand itself is what people search for.
• Give every page its own title. Duplicate titles make it hard for Google and for searchers to tell pages apart.
• Don’t stuff keywords or repeat the same word three times. It looks spammy and Google is more likely to rewrite it.

How to write a meta description

Think of the description as a short ad for the page. It should confirm what the title promised and add a detail that makes the click worthwhile.

• Describe what the reader gets: the answer, the product, the price range, the steps.
• Repeat the main term once, naturally. Google often highlights words that match the search.
• Be concrete instead of generic. “Opening hours, menu and online orders” beats “Welcome to our website”.
• Write a unique description for every important page. For thousands of similar pages (e.g. product variants), a template with the product name and key facts is fine.
• Match the page. If the description promises something the page doesn’t deliver, people bounce back to the results.

Good and bad examples

The examples below are made up, but they show the most common mistakes and how to fix them:

Why Google rewrites titles and descriptions

Google often shows a different title or snippet than the one you wrote. For titles this happens more often when they’re very long, stuffed with keywords, the same across many pages or don’t match the content. Google may then use the main heading (H1) or other text from the page instead.

Descriptions are rewritten even more often: Google picks text from the page that fits the specific search. That isn’t a penalty. A clear, relevant description still gets shown for many searches, and the content of your page becomes the fallback – one more reason to answer the main question early on the page.

Check your titles and find pages worth improving

To see what Google shows, search for site:yourdomain.com plus a word from the page, or search the query you want to rank for. To see what you wrote, open the page in the browser and view the source (search for “<title”).

In Google Search Console, open Performance → Search results, switch on “Average CTR” and “Average position” and go to the Pages tab. Pages with many impressions, a decent position and a low CTR are your best candidates: people see them, but don’t click. Click a page and switch to the Queries tab to see which searches it appears for, then write the title for those searches. If you’re new to the reports, start with our Search Console guide.

Change one page at a time, note the date and compare the following weeks with the weeks before. CTR also moves with position and season, so don’t judge after two days. If CTR drops across the whole site at once, it’s usually something else – see why Google clicks drop. And if two of your pages compete for the same search with similar titles, read about keyword cannibalization.

Preview and test your snippets with Rankpilot

Rankpilot is an iPhone and iPad app that is coming soon to the App Store. Its Google result preview shows how your title and description will look in search results and suggests alternatives with AI. The keyword check tells you whether your search term appears in the title, headings and text, and the website check lists problems with concrete fixes.

If you connect Google Search Console, Rankpilot shows clicks, impressions, CTR and positions per page and query. With SEO experiments you can compare a page before and after you changed its title. The app is free; Rankpilot Pro is an optional subscription with more pages per check, unlimited websites and 90 days of data.