Marketing Monday: How To Optimize Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions For Google Search Results

Originally Published November 2019

Have you ever looked at a page title or desciption in Google Search Results and thought: That’s perfect! Exactly what I wanted to know! And you clicked in? That’s what you’re learning how to do today.

We’ll look a bit at Keyword Research. We’ll also take a look at how to get your Meta Title just right. And we’ll determine what makes a great Meta Description.

Also, be sure to check out our YouTube video on the subject if you prefer to watch rather than read.

Title screen showing a laptop with Google Analytics on it, reading: How To Optimize Meta Title & Description For Search Results

Conducting Keyword Research

Keyword Research is best done with a Google Ads account. If you don’t have a Google account, click this video link to learn how to make one. Now head to ads.google.com, and log in with your Google Account. Go to:

Tools & Settings > Planning > Keyword Planner

Then select an account. We’ll be using Cohlab, but you’ll have to make your own. Go down to “Discover New Keywords” and we’ll add in a few keywords here. We’re going to use “web design” and “website design”. Once we search for keywords, we’ll need to set our location. We want to see searches performed in Minnesota only, but you can set your own geographic boundaries. Then, we’ll sort by keyword volume to see what’s the highest.

In our list, we’ll see “web design” and “website design” rank highly. Some others are “free website” type searches, or “free website builders” like Wix. Then we have “website designer near me” which is a location indicator, so we can see location plays into people’s purchasing decisions. All of this informs our creation of our meta title and meta description.

Creating A Meta Title

There are four main parts to the creation of any unique meta title:

  • Main Keyword
  • Business Name
  • Location (if applicable)
  • Under 60 characters

We came up with the following for our Home page:

Website Design, Internet Marketing | St. Cloud, MN | Cohlab

Creating A Meta Description

There are also four main parts to any great, unique meta description:

  • Main Keyword(s)
  • Location
  • Get Clicked
  • Under 150 characters

For our Home page we came up with:

We’re a results-driven digital marketing agency in St. Cloud. We handle responsive web design/development, internet marketing/SEO & review management.

Thanks for watching. Check out our other Marketing Monday videos to help you learn how to develop your website and handle digital marketing for your company.