Page title, headings and meta description

The page title and meta description are what appear in Google's search results. They often determine whether someone clicks on your page. The headings on the page help both visitors and Google understand what it's about.

Page title

• Write what the page is about, leading with the word customers search for, and put your company name last. For example Roofers in Oxford | My Company.
• Keep it around 50–60 characters. Longer titles get cut off in search results.
• Give each page its own title. Multiple pages with the same title make it harder for Google to pick the right one.

Meta description

• One or two sentences that summarise the page and give people a reason to click.
• Aim for around 150–160 characters. Google truncates longer text and sometimes picks its own snippet from the page.
• The meta description doesn't directly affect your ranking, but a well-written one gets more clicks.

Headings

• Every page should have a main heading, H1, that describes the page. In WordPress this is usually the page title.
• Break up the text with subheadings, H2 and H3, in the correct order. Don't choose a heading level just to get a certain text size.
• Write headings that actually say something, for example How long a roof replacement takes instead of Information.

How to edit in WordPress

WordPress has no built-in meta description field, so you'll need an SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math. See how to install plugins in How to install a plugin.

1. Open the page or post in the editor.
2. Scroll down to the SEO plugin's panel, or open it in the sidebar.
3. Fill in the SEO title and Meta description. The plugin shows a preview of how it will look in Google.
4. Click Update.

It may take a few days or weeks before Google shows the new text. You can speed things up by inspecting the page and requesting indexing in Google Search Console.

To get a better understanding of the basics, read What is SEO and why does it matter for Swedish businesses?

Title and meta description in other publishing tools

Joomla

1. Meta description for an article: open the article under Content and Articles, go to the Publishing tab and fill in Meta Description.
2. Page title: open the menu item that displays the page under Menus, go to the Page Display tab and fill in Browser Page Title.
3. Company name in all titles: under System and Global Configuration, on the Site tab, set Site Name in Page Titles to After.
4. Save.

Drupal

1. Install and enable the Metatag module.
2. Go to Configuration, Search and metadata and Metatag to set default values for the whole site.
3. Open a page for editing. Under Meta tags, fill in Page title and Description for that specific page.
4. Save.

Wix, Squarespace and Shopify

• Wix: open the page in the editor, select the page settings and go to the SEO tab.
• Squarespace: open the page settings and go to the SEO tab.
• Shopify: at the bottom of each product, collection and page you'll find Search engine listing preview. Click Edit.

Wix, Squarespace and Shopify run on their respective providers' own servers, not on web hosting. Menu names can change between versions, so check their help centre if you can't find the setting.

Menu names in Joomla and Drupal are generally the same in English. If your control panel looks different, it may be due to the version you're running.