Undoubtedly title and description tags or Meta as they are called, are two most important aspects of search engine optimisation. The title tag is used for ranking by Google and other search engines, while description tag is not. Since most of the searches use Google, we will stick to this search engine in this post.

Title tag

The Title tag is the one you see on top of a web browser when you open a web page. This tells the user what to expect inside the web page. But more importantly, the title tag is what you see in the first line of a search result. It is used by Google for ranking purposes by extracting keywords from it. It is, therefore, essential to creating not only useful titles but also insert appropriate keywords in it. SEO specialists have ascertained through research that keeping keywords at the beginning of the title has maximum effect.

You must ensure that each page on your website has a unique title and the keywords are appropriate to that page. Often I see that webmasters tend to ignore title tags and concentrate on web content. I would say that this laziness is unacceptable. You must spend a considerable amount of time creating unique titles for every one of your web pages. You will see for yourself how your website jumps in ranking.

You must make sure that the title is no longer than 66 characters including spaces. Google will chop off the words which go beyond this limit.

Description tag

I sincerely lament the disappearance of well crafted, colourful description tags which tell users what to expect inside the web page. Truth be told, description tag can make or break your website. Every search result displays the description of the web page, and usually, people tend to click on sites which tell them what to expect. I come across stories which say almost nothing about the content or are just too generic. You must understand that though the description tag does not contribute to your Google ranking (the reason why most SEO guys tend to ignore this tag), it is equally important in deciding weather your search listing will be clicked on by the user or not. You as the webmaster should remember that first page ranking by itself does not ensure great traffic to your site. Great title and description tags, together, contribute to your success. I for one will click on a link which tells me what lies inside. At least, in this case, nobody likes surprises.

Title and description tags have different purposes. The title tag is significant for Search engine ranking. Here you must include keywords preferably at the very beginning. The description tag is not for classification but is essential to tell visitors about the web page they are about to visit. Both the title and description tag have an indispensable role to play in bringing traffic to a site and thus neither should be taken lightly.