Just like a headline on a newspaper article, a strong TITLE and META tag will give visitors a reason to read your content.

Understanding and writing strong TITLE and META tags is one of the few ways of taking control of how search engines display your content. While these important tags no longer have much effect on search engine rankings, they do dictate how your pages should be described in the search engine results. The TITLE and META tags are your first chance to make a positive impression on visitors looking for your information, and ultimately, to get them to click through to your site.

What are TITLE and META tags? TITLE and META tags are a snippet of HTML code that goes in the TITLEer of your Web site. Search engines look for this information and use it as a way of determining what your site is about and how it should be diplayed in the search results. Think of your site as a newspaper article – the TITLE would be the equivalent of the headline, and the META would be the first paragraph of the story that tells the reader why they should care.

There are two main types of META tags: keywords and description. Keywords is a dated concept, but the description META tag is what is useful. This is your chance to enter a brief description of your site, which is indexed and displayed by search engines. Your meta tag would look something like this:

<META name=”description” content=”This is a 120 character description of your site describing the key content and benefits your page offers”>

Here’s how it correlates into a search result:

How do I edit my TITLE and META tags? It depends on how your Web site is generated. With SPS, for example, our system automatically generates TITLE and META tags, but we give Realtors the option to easily create their own without having to edit any code manually. Other content management systems like WordPress include an option to easily edit your TITLE and META tags, too. The only way to know for sure is to talk to the person who created your site and ask them – or do a little research on your own. It’s generally a very easy fix to work.

What type of information should I include in my TITLE and META tags? The job of your TITLE and META tags is to catch a user’s eye and quickly tell them WHY they should visit your page. And you don’t have much room to do it in – typically only the first 60 or so characters of the TITLE are displayed and the first 120 or so of the META description are displayed. Use these characters wisely. Write short, accurate descriptions of what your Web site is offering users. Include some keywords that will catch your users eye. Create a call to action – “Click here” or “See more.”

Will my TITLE or META tags affect my Search Engine Optimization?
In the old days, maybe. Now, it’s doubtful. The TITLE tag should include keywords from your site – most SEO experts agree that search engines still look to the TITLE tag as a way of determining your site’s relevance. But people used to spam the META description with all sorts of keywords. Now, it’s a much better idea to use that space to describe your site. Here’s what Google has to say on the issue:

We frequently prefer to display meta descriptions of pages (when available) because it gives users a clear idea of the URL’s content. This directs them to good results faster and reduces the click-and-backtrack behavior that frustrates visitors and inflates web traffic metrics. Keep in mind that meta descriptions comprised of long strings of keywords don’t achieve this goal and are less likely to be displayed in place of a regular, non-meta description, snippet. And it’s worth noting that while accurate meta descriptions can improve clickthrough, they won’t affect your ranking within search results.

The key phrase here is improve clickthrough, but not ranking. A strong meta description is a way to give visitors a reason to click YOUR result, rather than the nine other ones on the page. And in the long run, this might be even more valuable to your traffic than a stronger position in the rankings.

SPS just started giving its subscribers the ability to manually edit the TITLE and META tags on each of their Single Property Sites. To learn more, or to sign up for a free trial, go to ProSPS.com.