You probably know that the content of your website can help you get found in search. The title of your page or post is important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It should provide a good summary of the content of your page and include the terms your audience is likely to search for when they need this content. When a user enters keywords these are highlighted in the title of the page in search results.
Tips to Maximize the Effectiveness of Post Titles
- Keep your post title short. The Title should be below 55 characters to ensure that the full title is always displayed and never cut off. (check the Yoast SEO preview to see how long your title is and how it will appear in search results)
- Put important keywords closer to the beginning of the tile. Research suggests that when keywords are closer to the front, pages get higher search engine rankings and click through rates.
- To ensure higher click-through rates, make sure your title is creative, unique, and makes sense to the reader. Remember, you are writing for a human reader too. Make them want to click!
We install the Yoast SEO plug-in in our WordPress sites to help you optimize your pages and posts for search results. This plug-in lets you enter custom descriptions and titles for the snippet of the page. The snippet is the summary which appears in search results.
How to Edit the Yoast SEO Title and Meta Descriptions
- While you in the page or post editor, scroll down to the Yoast SEO section to see a preview of the default SEO Title and Meta Description
- Click on the Snippet Editor button
- The SEO Title field shows you what the template is for a title in your site (For example, Title of the page + a separator + your site name)
- Click on the field to change it
- The Meta Description field is used to change the default description
- You can keep what’s in the default field, paste it in and type in your changes, or start from scratch and write a new description
- The changes are saved when you save or update the page or post
- Look for the colored progress bar, it gives you an idea of the proper length for the title or description. Red text indicates the text is too long, orange is too short, and green is about the right length
If you are using the new Gutenberg editor, don’t worry! The process for editing the SEO title and meta description is exactly the same as in the classic editor.
