Two lines that get clicks.

How to write a title and description: what these tags are

The title is the page heading in the HTML code. It appears on the browser tab, and search engines use it to build the heading of the snippet - the page's block in search results. The description is a meta tag with a short summary of the page that may become the text under that heading. Before opening the site, a person decides whether to click based on these two lines. Here is how to write a title and description so the snippet is clear and people click on it.

We covered the basic rules for meta tags in our step-by-step guide to on-page optimisation. This article is about the snippet itself: what search engines do with your tags, how to write the heading and the description, and how to tell whether a new version works better than the old one.

Why search results do not always show your title

The title and description are a request, not an order. Yandex says in its help pages that the snippet heading may be generated from the page content, and different users see different headings depending on their query. Yandex picks the description itself too: the snippet shows the most informative text that is most relevant to the query, and the description may be used for that.

Google works in a similar way. For the heading it uses not only the title tag but also the h1, the og:title tag, large prominent text on the page and the text of links pointing to it. It substitutes its own version when the title:

• is half-empty;
• is outdated - for example, it contains last year's date;
• does not match what the page is about;
• repeats as boilerplate across a group of pages;
• is unclear because the page has several equally large headings.

Google builds snippets primarily from the page text and uses the meta description when it describes the page more accurately. Hence the main takeaway: the title, the h1 and the first paragraph should all say the same thing. Then the search engine has no reason to look for a replacement, and if it does take one from the text, that will be accurate too.

How to write a title

The Yandex help pages and Google's documentation agree on the essentials. A good title:

• Describes this particular page. "Home", "Catalogue", "Services" tell neither people nor search engines anything.
• Is unique. Yandex Webmaster specifically warns you if the site has many repeated titles.
• Starts with the main point. There is no hard character limit: the length is limited by the screen width, and a long title is simply cut off. Put the essence first and secondary details at the end.
• Is not a list of keywords. Yandex advises using a few important phrases without repeating them: a title that reads like a list may be treated as spam.
• Has the brand at the beginning or the end, separated by a colon, a dash or a vertical bar.
• Has no boilerplate tails. Yandex gives the example of a title like "Product name - description, prices, specifications, photos, reviews": keep only what is actually on the page in the title and move the rest to the description.

What this looks like in practice. For a service page, a weak option is "Services | Company". A stronger one is "Washing machine repair at home in Kazan - 'Name' service": it is clear what, where and who. For an article, give the topic and the benefit: "How to choose a washing machine: 7 parameters that matter". Numbers and promises in a title are appropriate only if the page backs them up: "7 parameters" commits you to showing seven parameters.

How to write a description

The description does not affect rankings in Google - the company has said so since 2009. But it may become the snippet text, so it works for clicks. Yandex's requirements for the description are:

• Unique for each page and different from the title. Template-based and near-identical descriptions, according to the help pages, are unlikely to appear in results.
• Reflects the content and is written in proper sentences - no keyword lists, capital letters or advertising slogans.
• Contains useful details: the price, the colour, the delivery city - anything that helps people choose before they click.
• Puts the main point first. As with the title, the length is limited by the screen width.
• Is up to date. Outdated information and service text in the description are typical mistakes listed in the help pages.

For a service page a simple pattern works: what you do and for whom, one or two verifiable facts, and what the person will find on the page. For example: "We repair washing machines of all brands at home. A technician comes on the day you call, and the work is guaranteed. The page lists prices for standard repairs." The facts, of course, have to be yours.

For a catalogue with hundreds of products there is no need to write descriptions by hand. Yandex advises generating them with your CMS from product fields - size, weight, availability - and Google calls programmatic generation of descriptions appropriate for large sites. The main thing is that pages do not end up with identical text.

How to find weak snippets and check the result

Start with duplicates and gaps. Yandex Webmaster has a "Titles and descriptions" report in the "Indexing" section, with examples of pages whose title and description repeat. "Diagnostics" flags pages without a description and mass duplicates. Identical titles on different pages sometimes point to a deeper problem - keyword cannibalisation, when pages of one site compete for the same phrase.

Next comes CTR, the share of clicks out of impressions. In Webmaster it is in the "Performance → Page statistics" report, and the help pages call it an indicator of how attractive a snippet is. In Google Search Console, clicks, impressions, CTR and average position are shown in the performance report. We described how to review this data regularly in our article on Yandex Webmaster for business owners.

The workflow is as follows:

1. Pick pages with many impressions and a low CTR compared with similar pages on the site.
2. See how they look in search results for the main queries and what the neighbouring results show.
3. Rewrite the title and description, checking them against the h1 and the first paragraph.
4. Change a small group of pages at a time and note the date of the change.
5. Compare CTR after the pages have been recrawled and over a comparable period: both the season and the position affect clicks.

Higher CTR does not yet mean higher sales. To see whether a new snippet brings people who submit requests, you need goals in Yandex Metrica. If there are hundreds of pages, it makes sense to include meta tags in the overall SEO promotion plan.

In short

• The title and description shape the snippet, but search engines may replace them with text from the page.
• The title, the h1 and the first paragraph should say the same thing.
• In the title, put the essence first, with no keyword lists or boilerplate tails; the brand goes at the start or the end.
• The description should be unique, coherent and useful: it does not affect Google rankings but works for clicks.
• Look for duplicates in Webmaster under "Titles and descriptions" and judge snippet appeal by CTR.
• Change meta tags in groups and compare results over comparable periods.

Frequently asked questions

How long should a title be?

Neither Yandex nor Google sets a fixed limit: the heading is cut to fit the device screen width. So think about word order rather than character count - put the most important part first so it stays visible on a phone too.

Should I put keywords in the description?

The main query in its natural form is fine. A list of keywords does harm: Yandex explicitly asks you not to overuse keywords, and Google does not use the meta description for rankings.

Why does Yandex show a different heading when the title is filled in?

The snippet heading may be generated from the page content and change depending on the query. Check that the title matches the h1 and the content, and that it has no boilerplate phrases or outdated dates.

Can I use one description for all pages?

There is no point: the search engine will most likely not show identical descriptions and will build the snippet from the page text instead. For large catalogues, descriptions are generated from product fields using a template - that way they stay different.