Meta titles, often known as SEO titles or title tags, are essential for your website’s SEO. However, many small business owners aren’t sure what they are, why they are necessary or how to write them. In this guide, I will show you how to write a meta title for your small business, and offer some SEO title best practices.
This blog was updated in May 2024.
This guide covers:
What is a Meta Title?
A meta title helps search engines and search engine users understand what a website page is about. It indicates to search engine users what they can expect to find on the page should they decide to click onto it.
You can see meta titles when you enter a search query into a search engine. The meta title is shown in blue or purple in Google Search results (see the example below).
If you do not specify a meta title for a website page, search engines will generate one automatically. However, an automatically generated SEO title won't target your focus keyword, so it's always advisable to write an optimised SEO title for every page on your website.
How to Write an Optimised Meta Title for Your Small Business Website
For best SEO results, you should write a different meta title for every page on your website. If you don’t write a meta title, search engines will generate one automatically based on the website page content. However, these may not be completely accurate and are unlikely to perform as well as purpose-written SEO titles.
Writing meta titles does not have to be difficult, but they can be fiddly. This is because you are subject to character limits (around 50-60 characters) and your meta title should contain your focus keyword for that page (ideally at the start). Meta titles should be unique for each page, and they should also differ slightly from your H1 (main heading / page title).
Before you start writing your SEO titles, make sure you have carried out keyword research. See my article on How to Find Keywords for SEO for a more detailed guide on keyword research.
Once you have your keywords and have worked out which keyword you will focus on for each page, you can start writing your meta titles.
Tip: I have a spreadsheet, which I use to keep track of my SEO plan. Each row is a page on my website, and the columns list the focus keyword(s) for each page, along with the SEO Titles, SEO Descriptions and h1 tags. This is really useful, especially if you have a larger website!
SEO Title Best Practices
Your meta titles should fit all of the following criteria. Whilst it’s not always possible to nail each point exactly, you should aim to be as close as possible:
50-60 characters long
Include the focus keyword for that page
Be unique for each page
Be (slightly) different from the H1 for that page
Be relevant to the website page - does it accurately describe the purpose or subject of the page?
Ideally, include your business name (can be paraphrased or shortened if necessary). This helps people to identify the website and remember your business
Get Help With Your Meta Titles
As a small business SEO consultant and content marketing coach, I specialise in helping small businesses get found in Google Search and drive more organic traffic to their websites. Optimised meta titles are crucial to SEO success, but there's no need to stress when you work with me!
As part of my SEO consultancy and coaching offers, I can help you write and optimise your meta titles so that they target the right keywords and help you drive more free traffic to your small business.
If you want to take the first step towards making your small business more visible in Google Search, book your FREE Discovery Call and explore how I can help you with my SEO and blogging coaching and consultancy services.
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