SEO
Page titles and meta descriptions, explained simply.
If you've ever wondered why one website shows up in Google with a tidy, tempting headline and another shows up as a jumble of half-sentences, the answer usually comes down to two small pieces of text: the page title and meta description. They're the most-read words you'll ever write, and most small business sites get them wrong by simply never thinking about them at all.
The good news is they're quick to fix once you understand what each one does. You don't need to touch code, and you don't need to be technical. You just need to know what Google is showing, and write it on purpose rather than by accident.
What page titles and meta descriptions actually are
When you search for something and look at the list of results, each result has two parts that you control:
- The page title (sometimes called the title tag): the blue, clickable headline at the top of each result.
- The meta description: the grey paragraph of text underneath it.
The title also shows up on your browser tab, and both often appear when someone shares your page on socials. They're the shopfront sign and the line of copy in the window, deciding whether a passer-by walks in or keeps scrolling.
The title carries real weight with Google's ranking, while the description doesn't directly affect where you rank. But the description heavily influences whether anyone clicks, and clicks matter. A page that ranks fifth but earns the click often will quietly do better than one that ranks third and gets ignored.
Writing a page title that works
A good title is short, specific, and leads with the thing people are actually searching for. Keep it to around 60 characters, because Google cuts off anything longer with an ellipsis.
The simplest reliable formula is main keyword first, brand name last, separated by a dash or pipe. So a Brunswick florist might use "Wedding florist in Brunswick | Bloom & Co" rather than "Bloom & Co - Welcome to our beautiful website". The first tells a searcher and Google exactly what they'll find. The second tells them nothing.
A few habits that make a real difference:
- Put the most important words near the front, where the eye lands and where Google pays most attention.
- Make every title unique. If five pages share the same title, Google can't tell them apart and neither can a searcher.
- Include your brand name, usually at the end, so people start to recognise you across results.
- For a local page, work in the suburb or service area the way someone would actually search for it.
That last point matters more than people expect. "Mobile dog grooming Footscray" will be searched far more often than a clever, location-free play on words. Plain and findable beats cute and invisible. If local search is your bread and butter, our local SEO checklist for Melbourne walks through where else your suburb should appear.
Open your homepage and look at the browser tab. If it just says your business name, or "Home", that's your title tag waving for attention. Rewrite it to say what you do and where.
Writing a meta description that earns the click
If the title is the headline, the meta description is the ad copy underneath. Its only job is to make the right person think "yes, that's the one" and click. Treat it the way you'd treat a line in a brochure, not a place to dump keywords.
Aim for around 155 characters. Much longer and Google trims it mid-sentence; much shorter and you've left persuasion on the table. Within that space, try to:
- Speak directly to the reader and name the problem you solve or the thing they want.
- Include a gentle reason to choose you, like the suburb you serve, your speciality, or a clear next step.
- Finish with a soft nudge, such as "Book a free chat" or "See our recent work".
Write your description for a curious human, not a search engine counting words.
Avoid keyword stuffing, where you cram the same phrase in three or four times hoping it helps you rank. It reads like spam, and Google will sometimes ignore what you wrote and generate its own from the page instead. A description that sounds like a real person almost always performs better. If you'd like to see whether Google is even showing your version, the free Search Console basics guide shows you how to check.
How to spot weak titles and descriptions
You can audit your own site in about ten minutes. Search for "site:yourdomain.com.au" in Google, and you'll see your pages listed the way the world sees them. Then look for the usual warning signs:
- Titles that all say the same thing, or just your business name with nothing else.
- Generic words like "Home", "Services", or "Untitled" doing the heavy lifting.
- Titles cut off with "..." because they ran well past 60 characters.
- Missing descriptions, where Google has scraped a random sentence from the page.
- The same description repeated across every page, so nothing stands out.
Most content management systems give you a simple field for the title and description on each page, usually under an "SEO" or "page settings" tab, so you rarely need a developer to fix them.
Every page deserves its own title and its own description. If you'd struggle to tell two pages apart from their titles alone, your visitors will too.
A simple order to work through it
You don't have to fix everything at once. Start where it counts and work outward:
- Your homepage, because it's the page most people land on first.
- Your main service or product pages, since those are what people are searching for.
- Your contact and about pages, which often have the laziest titles of all.
- Your blog posts and everything else, as you find the time.
None of this is glamorous work, but it's some of the most reliable you can do. Better titles and descriptions cost nothing, take an afternoon, and quietly lift how often the right people choose you. If you'd rather not stare at character counts on your own, we're happy to fold this into a website refresh and get every page pulling its weight.
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