Title
and description tags'
lengths on mobile devices
Title and description tags' lengths on mobile devices
This article takes account of the updating realised by Google in May, 2016.
Your page's title and descriptions tags are the first elements the internet user will see in your website. They are the one which will convince him, or not, to click on your link.
Due to the arrival of internet users, which now represent 50 % of the websites visitors and up to 60 % during the week ends, it is necessary to transform you pages' titles and descriptions, so as they become compatible to tablets and Smartphones.
Naturally, the screens' dimensions modify a little the titles' and meta descriptions' lengths.
With more than 90 % of the market shares in France and in the international, we will only talk about the search engine Google in this article.
Definition : Title and description tags
The title and description tags are elements you will set parameters for in your website's interface for each of your pages.
Technically, they are called :
The title tag,
The meta description tag.
In the source code of your page, you'll find them in the following form :
For the title tag : <title>Your page's title</title>,
For the meta description tag : <meta name="description"content="your page's description>.
Their only goal is to describe precisely your page's contents to the Internet users, like there is a title and a back cover for a book.
Posting : title and description tags
Where do your title and description tags appear ?
The title and description tags only appear :
In the results of search engines
When you share your page on social networks
For the title, in the web browser's tab
They never appear on your website.
How do you your title and description tags appear ?
In the majority of cases, Google will take back the contents you have defined the parameters of, to present them to the Internet users.
Sometimes, Google will take the liberty to modify them, even to re-write them for you. Here is a non exhaustive list of the possible situations :
Your contents are too long and everything which exceeds the number of authorised typefaces by tag will be replaced by dot dot dot. Solution : respect the number of typefaces advised by tag.
You have updated your title and description tags but Google hasn't already upgraded its index. It will therefore post ancient contents until popping by again on your website. Solution : be patient !
Your tags are empty or don't play their role. You have for instance given the title "Welcome" to your page. Nothing more blur... In this case, Google will create a title and a description for you.
Titles and descriptions, what impact on your website ?
Get more clicks from your Internet users
You have understood it, the title and description are the first contents your Internet users will see. They need to be precise, efficient and relevant, in order to convince the Internet users and get their clicks.
How can you know you are convincing ?
Install Google Master (free) on your website. It will measure your CTR (Click through Rate). You will know, for the key-words which generate most of the traffic on your website, how many persons have seen your advert (called "Impression" in Google Webmaster), and how many Internet users have clicked on it.If it has been seen 1000 times and clicked 3 times, there is probably a problem... A good CTR turns around 10 % to 12 %.
Key-words put in advance in your titles and and descriptions
As we will see it later in the article, key-words are of the highest importance.
Concretely, the key-words used during the Internet user's search will be put in bold type in your title and description if they are present there. This visual clue offered by Google can influence the Internet user's click.
Obtain a better positioning in Google
Repeatedly, Google's teams have indicated that the description tag has no impact on the website's classification in the search engines.
However, the title is extremely important. This is the place where you need to place your key-words in order to optimise your SEO and become more visible.
Optimised titles and descriptions
Keep in mind that all of your pages must deal with a precise subject and therefore be focused on a key-word. This is the key to success, the rest is common sense.
Here is the list of good practices concerning your titles' and descriptions' redaction :
Redact a unique title and description for each of your pages,
Place your key-word at the beginning of your title, instead of at the end, to give it more weight (prominence criterion),
Avoid writing your company's name in the title. You would lose place as well as your key-words' weight,
Don't repeat key-words in the title. This would be considered as over-optimisation by Google,
Use the whole typefaces at your disposal to convince your Internet users,
Redact your titles and descriptions in order to attract your Internet users' click.
We indicate you lower how to check and correct your titles and descriptions.
Titles' and descriptions' dimensions
To be precise, since May, 2016, Google posts titles and descriptions on a width of 600 pixels, as far as computers are concerned.
To be concrete, here are the advised dimensions.
The presence of repeated capital letters or even the letters' dimensions can influence the dimension (a "W" will be wider than a "w"). See the 600 pixels.
Titles and descriptions on computers and tablets
Optimal title's size : 70 typefaces (space included)
Optimal description's size : 154 typefaces (space included)
Title and description on mobile devices
Optimal title's size : 78 typefaces (space included)
Optimal description's size : 154 typefaces (space included)
On mobile devices, Google places the titles on two lines, which eventually lets more space than on computers.
As a conclusion, if you can do big things, you can do little things as well. We therefore advise you to redact :
Titles included between 60 and 70 typefaces (space included)
Descriptions included between 100 and 154 typefaces (space included)
That way, all of your titles and descriptions will be optimised for every device and will be exploited the most efficient way.
Check and optimise your titles and descriptions
Now act ! The optimisation of your title and descriptions can have real impacts on your positioning and click rate.
Extract all your titles and descriptions
Download the free ScreamingFrog. This tool (in English) is available for Mac and PC and enables you to analyse freely until 500 pages of a web site. You will then be able to extract an Excel file and optimise your contents !
Keep an eye on your titles and descriptions
Install Google Webmaster on your website. It will analyse permanently your contents and indicate the elements to optimise : too long, short, or doubled contents.
Now it's your turn to act !
PS : feedback. By optimising the titles and descriptions on our Orson blog, we have doubled the amount of visitors on some articles. Verdict !