What is a Title Tag and Meta Description?

Defining Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

One of the most common questions the content team is asked is, “What is a title tag and meta description?” It is usually followed with, “Why are these on my page of content and where will they show up on my website?”

A title tag and meta description are part of best practices for search engine optimization and usability. They are an important part of your website, even if ranking in search engines is not important to you. At PaperStreet, we include basic title tags and meta descriptions with all of our projects.

So, what is a title tag and meta description and where do they show up?

In this example the title tag is, “Law Firm Web Design, Lawyer Website Designs | PaperStreet”. The meta description is the brief sentence description immediately following the title tag. It reads, “Impress. Get Results. 850+ happy law firms since 2001. Founded by a Lawyer, for Lawyers. PaperStreet specializes in law firm web designs, SEO, content and internet marketing.”

A title tag also appears at the top of the page in the browser tab.

You’ll notice that the meta description on the Google search results page is cut off after “and”. Title tags and meta descriptions have strict character limits. If you go over the suggested character limit the sentence will be cut off.

Additional Resources

There is a lot to know about title tags and meta descriptions. In many ways, they are the bread and butter of search engine optimization results. Review the posts below to learn more about how to write and optimize title tags and meta descriptions.

• How to Write the Perfect Title Tag
• On-Page Optimization – Part I: Writing Title Tags
• On-Page Optimization – Part II: Writing Meta Descriptions
• New Optimization Standards for Web Content