Every page competes for attention on a results page full of other titles, ads, maps and AI summaries. The title tag is a confirmed relevance signal and the biggest element of your snippet; the meta description doesn’t affect rankings but often decides whether someone clicks you or the result below. Both live in the page’s <head>:
<title>Emergency Plumber in Leeds – 24/7, Fixed Prices | FlowFix</title>
<meta name="description" content="Burst pipe or no hot water? Our Gas Safe engineers reach most Leeds postcodes within 60 minutes. Fixed call-out price, no hidden fees. Call now.">Length: think in pixels, not characters
Search results truncate by width, not character count. A title full of wide letters (W, M) gets cut sooner than one full of narrow letters (i, l, t).
| Element | Practical target | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Title | ~50–60 characters (≈600 px on desktop) | Put the keyword and the distinctive part first |
| Meta description | ~120–155 characters | Mobile may show less; lead with the benefit |
These are guidelines, not hard limits. A longer title won’t be penalised; it just risks an ellipsis in the wrong place. Our meta tag generator shows a live preview so you can see where truncation would happen.
Writing a strong title tag
- Lead with the main topic or keyword people actually search for: “Accountant in Manchester”, not “Welcome to Our Website”.
- Add a differentiator: price, speed, location, year, number, outcome. “Free”, “2026”, “in 10 minutes”, “from £49”.
- Brand at the end, separated by
|or–, unless the brand is the thing people search for. - One title per page, unique across the site. Duplicate titles make pages compete and confuse users.
- Match the H1 in meaning, not necessarily word for word. If the title and H1 contradict each other, Google is more likely to rewrite the title.
Good vs bad titles
| Bad | Why | Better |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Says nothing | Handmade Oak Furniture, Made in Yorkshire | Elm & Oak |
| Shoes, Cheap Shoes, Buy Shoes Online, Shoes Sale | Keyword stuffing, likely rewritten | Women’s Running Shoes – Free UK Delivery | RunCo |
| The Ultimate Complete Definitive Guide to Everything About Email Deliverability in 2026 | Too long, key words cut off | Email Deliverability Guide: Fix Spam Issues (2026) |
| Product 4421 | Internal code | Ergonomic Office Chair with Lumbar Support – $249 |
Writing a meta description that earns the click
Think of it as a two-sentence advert that answers: Is this the right page for my search, and why click this one?
- Match the search intent. Informational queries want a promise of an answer; commercial queries want price, range, delivery, trust.
- Include the keyword naturally. Google bolds query terms in the snippet, which draws the eye.
- Be specific: “Delivery in 2 working days” beats “fast delivery”. Numbers stand out.
- End with a soft call to action where it fits: “Compare plans”, “See prices”, “Book online”.
- Write unique descriptions for important pages. For thousands of product pages, a template with real variables (name, price, key spec) is better than one duplicated sentence.
Good vs bad descriptions
Bad: “We are a leading provider of high-quality solutions for all your needs. Contact us today for more information.”
Better: “Fixed-fee bookkeeping for UK sole traders from £39/month. MTD-compatible, a named accountant, and your tax return included. Get a quote in 2 minutes.”
The second one tells the searcher who it’s for, the price, what’s included and what to do next, in about 150 characters.
Why Google rewrites titles and descriptions
Google may replace your title with text from the H1, anchor text or elsewhere on the page, and it frequently generates descriptions from page content that better matches a specific query. Common triggers:
- titles that are too long, vague or stuffed with keywords,
- the same boilerplate on many pages,
- titles that don’t match the page’s main heading or content,
- missing or empty descriptions.
You can’t fully prevent rewriting, but accurate, concise, unique tags are rewritten far less. Run your page through our SEO checker to catch missing, duplicate or overlong tags.
Titles for social sharing
Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and X use Open Graph tags (og:title, og:description) when they exist, and fall back to the title tag otherwise. You can make the social version a little more conversational than the search version. Preview it with the Open Graph preview tool and read our Open Graph guide for image sizes and cache refreshing.
Common mistakes
- Leaving CMS defaults like “Home”, “Products” or “Untitled”.
- The same title on paginated or filtered pages.
- Promising something the page doesn’t deliver (high bounce, possible rewrite).
- ALL CAPS or excessive punctuation and emoji.
- Writing the description once and never revisiting it as the page changes.
Checklist
- Every indexable page has a unique
<title>and meta description. - Main keyword near the start of the title; brand at the end.
- Title around 50–60 characters, description around 120–155.
- Description answers “why this page?” with specifics and a call to action.
- Title and H1 agree; Open Graph tags set for shareable pages.
- Search Console’s Performance report checked for pages with high impressions but low CTR, which are the best candidates to rewrite first.