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What Are Title Tags?

Title tags are HTML coding that simply state your page’s title that’s displayed in search results. The Title tag is “Pittsburgh Web Design and SEO | Higher Images Inc.” The HTML would read: head    title Pittsburgh Web Design and SEO | Higher Images Inc./title/head

All website pages contain two important pieces of information for both users and search engines: the title tags and meta descriptions.

Here’s what to remember about title tags:
  • It’s not just a title that tells people what the page is about. It’s also a descriptive element that Google uses to figure out how to return high-quality results to users. When people go to this page on your website, this element will also be shown at the top of the browser that they’re using.
  • Your title should be only about 60 characters. That way, when it’s displayed in searches, the title will show up correctly. If someone has many tabs open on their computer, they’ll be able to see very quickly where your page’s tab is located from the title.
  • Use a keyword or two in your title tag, but don’t use too many. You don’t have enough characters available, and Google will notice if you’re trying to cram in too many keywords into a limited space.
  • Put your keywords first, if possible. You can see that the example shows “Pittsburgh web design and SEO” before the name of the company. That’s because many people are searching for Pittsburgh web design and SEO.
What is a Meta Description?

A meta description is a short text description, called a snippet, that is placed in a page’s HTML code. It describes the content of a page for search engines and also for the people who are searching. It’s a bit like Twitter in that it’s limited to a certain amount of characters—in this case, 160.

When someone is searching on Google, the meta description will appear under the URL of each search result, like this: The meta description should be entered in the “head” part of the HTML on each page. It will look like this, or similar to this: head meta name=”description”  content=”Higher Images is a Pittsburgh based advertising agency specializing in digital marketing. Services include website design, SEO, paid search, and PR.” /
/head So, how did Higher Images decide what the meta description should say?

  • First, we studied our keywords, and choose the most important ones to put in the description.
  • Then, we created a short sentence using those keywords. This sentence is just your normal, everyday content—easy to read, easy to understand, and appealing enough that searchers will want to click on it.
  • We made sure the sentence was less than 160 characters. This step can be difficult, because there’s so much you’d like to fit in your meta description, but you’re very limited.
  • The meta description must also pertain directly to the page it’s on. For example, if your meta description is about your selection of bathroom faucets, and the page is actually for kitchen cabinets, the search engine will know.

Title tags and meta descriptions are just the tip of the iceberg when you’re designing web pages and running an effective SEO program. If you want your page to show up high in the rankings, then you need a full-time SEO team working to bring you results. Don’t let your results languish where no one will see you. Higher Images’ SEO staff can help—contact us today.

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