Google SERP Simulator.

Australia’s favourite Google SERP preview tool.

Are you wondering how the title tag and meta description you’ve written for your website will look on Google’s results page? Use our super-handy Google SERP preview tool and find out!

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Copy your page’s title tag and meta description in the fields below to see how they’ll look in the Google SERP snippet below.

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About 45,800,00 results (0.48 seconds)

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May 30,2022

For Example: #1 Digital Marketing Company - Firstpage.com.au

Write your meta description to tell the Google users that you are the best in your industry! Tip: Use natural language rather than keyword stuffing.

The importance of meta tags for every business’ website

 Importance of Meta Tag Banner

Whether you operate a business that offers services to your local area and surrounds, an international ecommerce company selling products all over the world or anything in between, quality meta tags are an absolute necessity.

For something that takes almost no time at all to do, optimising your meta tag content is a fantastic way to increase the organic ranking of your page. In fact, it may very well be the ‘lowest-hanging fruit’ out there when it comes to website SEO. Meta tags will help you accurately describe your content, improve click through rate and boost your On-page SEO. Ready to dive in and know more about it ?

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What are meta tags?

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You might be wondering what the heck meta tags actually are at this stage, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

The digital world can often be incredibly confusing, and if you don’t have a lot of experience with website building and SEO there’s no real reason why you would know what meta tags are.

Essentially, meta tags are snippets of text found within a page’s HTML source code that describe that page’s content, helping search engines understand what the page is all about.

There are two main meta tags that you should know about if you want to optimise the pages on your website to rank better in the search results: title tags and meta descriptions.

What title tags are and why they’re essential

Title Tag Example
SERP Title Example

When you search for something on Google, you’ll be met with several relevant pages listed in the results. For each of the pages, there is blue text displayed - this is the title tag.

Further to showing up as the attention-grabbing blue text on the SERP, title tags will be displayed at the top of your browser in the page’s tab and also when your link is shared on social media platforms.

Seen as the most important of all meta tags, title tags indeed have a legitimate impact on how a page ranks in the search results. In addition to providing search engine crawlers assistance to understand your page’s content, it provides users with the essential information they need to know you have what they want which increases click-throughs and website traffic. Title tags play an essential role in matching user intent and search query to the most relevant resources by ranking them higher in the search result listing.

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Best practices when writing title tags

There are a few hot tips to remember when crafting a killer title tag.

Keep it (relatively) short and sweet

When a title tag is too long, Google will cut it off and simply add ‘...’ at the end. This is referred to as title tag truncation, and it looks pretty horrible. Avoid this by sticking to around 50-60 characters in length (check your title tags using our tool at the top of this page to make sure they won’t be cut off!). Check out our blog post on Best SEO Tools to perform an accurate keyword research to rank higher in SERP.

DON’T SCREAM AT YOUR AUDIENCE

Using all caps may seem like it’s a good way to attract attention, but users will feel as if you’re yelling at them through their screen! As a much more effective alternative, either use sentence case (first letter capitalised) or title case (all ‘main’ words are capitalised).

Write for humans, not robots

What this means is don’t overstuff your title tags with keywords. That method may have worked decades ago but it definitely doesn’t now, and will turn your audience off clicking through to your site.

When you’re crafting your title tags, put yourself in the shoes of a potential customer - would you click on it if that’s what came up in the Google results?

Make each unique

For every single one of the pages within your website, create a unique title tag that’s suitable for the content on that particular page. Duplicate title tags can cause issues, so avoid them at all costs.

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What meta descriptions are and why they’re also essential

Meta description tag example
Meta description SERP example

The other much-needed meta tag for every one of your website’s pages is a meta description. It works as a more in-depth descriptor than your title tag for search engines and users alike, and is seen on both SERPs and if the link is shared on social media.

This is the text that is displayed directly underneath a page’s title tag (the blue text, remember?) on Google’s SERP, sometimes displaying the publish/revision date of the page to its immediate left.

Although Google has advised that keywords within a meta description won’t have any effect on where your page ranks, a well-written one can be the difference between someone clicking through or not. And while meta descriptions might not affect rankings, higher click-through rates potentially will.

Which means it should be an integral part of your Google SERP optimisation process.

Best practices when writing meta descriptions

Now that you know just how important a top-quality meta description is, it’s time to get writing! But before you do, here are some best practices you should think about while you’re putting them together.

Don’t write a novel

Ain’t nobody got time for that! It’s recommended that you keep the character count to 160 which includes spaces. If you go over, you might find that Google cuts it off and adds an ellipsis (...) just like if you did the same with your title tag.

But you also don’t want to be too short with it, either. Provide your potential customers (and Google) with a good description about what’s on the page that complements the title tag nicely.

Use our Google SERP preview tool now to find out what your meta descriptions will look like on Google across desktop and mobile!

Pop in a few keywords

While it’s true that Google has come out and said the keywords within a meta description have zero effect on where a page ranks, it’s still a good idea to include one or two that relate to the page’s content in there.

This provides users with a much better idea of what they’ll find on the page, and if they’re searching for one of the keywords within your meta description they’re more likely to click.

Keep them unique for each page

Just like title tags, you want to write a unique meta description for every single one of the pages on your website. Especially considering if someone clicks through to a page that’s using another’s meta description and their desired content doesn’t exist, they’ll immediately leave.

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Let First Page take care of it all

First Page SEO Team

We know how intense it is running your own business. Between your ever-changing schedule and always-growing to-do list, trying to find the time to write the perfect title tags and meta descriptions for every page on your website can be nothing short of impossible.

At First Page, we have decades of combined experience creating top-performing meta tags for clients in all types of industries and can take the hassles out of it for you, too.

Focus on the more important aspects of operating your business and leave the tedious digital marketing stuff to the experts at First Page - call us today on 1300 479 226 today.

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Lifetime value

A key component in determining your ROI, this figure refers to how much customers spend on average during their entire customer lifecycle.

FAQs about Google SERP best practices

As the preferred digital marketing agency in Australia, we receive a number of questions about what the best practices are when it comes to being displayed on the Google SERP.

To help you on your way to optimising the way your business is displayed in the search results on Google, here are our most frequently asked questions about it.

SERP is an acronym which stands for Search Engine Results Page. When you search for something on Google, you’re then taken to a new page with all of the results that best match what you’ve searched for - this is the SERP.

There are a lot of ingredients that go into a solid marketing campaign, with SEO one of the major ones. Optimising the way your business shows up on the SERP is just one piece of the SEO puzzle and is perhaps one of the easiest things that can be done.

Showing potential customers clearly in the list of results that you have what they’re looking for through the title tag and meta description will drive clicks to your website and increase your leads/sales.

If you know where to go, you can update both the title tags and meta description of each of the pages on your website. It is important, though, that you follow the latest best practices when you’re writing them, as approaching it the wrong way may have a negative effect on how your business is perceived.

A meta description acts as a lengthier description to what’s on a particular page of a website. When combined with a well-written title tag, it can be a great way to increase the amount of click-throughs you get from the SERP.

There are several factors that go into creating an effective meta description such as sticking to a certain number of total characters and including the keyword/keyword phrase (exact or very similar) you’re looking to rank for.

On the results page after searching for something on Google, you’ll see a list of pages. Each page has a title tag, which is the larger blue font. Title tags are also shown in the tab at the top of your browser window.

Writing a strong title tag involves being aware of the latest best practices which can change constantly.

For example, it’s currently recommended that you keep each title tag to a maximum of 50-60 characters (including spaces) and that you use capital lettering sparingly and don’t ‘yell’ at your customers with all-caps title tags.

A well-produced title tag can make or break each of the pages on your site, so be sure to spend plenty of time putting each of them together.

There are little snippets of text within a page’s HTML code that provide information about the content that’s on the page. This helps search engines quickly crawl the HTML to understand what the page is about. While some are important for SEO purposes, others may not directly be (but can affect other areas like user experience).

There are several different types of meta tags, including (but not limited to):

  • Title tags
  • Meta descriptions
  • Alt text tag
  • Header tags
  • Canonical tags
  • Responsive design meta tags

While there are guides which suggest the recommended lengths for title tags (up to 50-60 characters) and meta descriptions (up to 160 characters), the way it actually appears on the Google SERP may result in either (or both) being cut off.

To check that both your title tags and meta descriptions won’t be cut off - and also look great - feel free to use our free Google SERP preview tool found at the top of this page!

We’ve made it nice and easy to use our Google SERP preview tool!

All you have to do is use the designated fields to type in the title tag, meta description and URL you wish to check and it’ll show up directly in the SERP snippet.

You can also choose to include a date stamp and star rating if you’d like to see how it all looks together.

If you’re a bit stuck on how to use the tool, we’re always more than happy to help you through it. Just call our friendly team on 1300 479 226 and we’ll talk you through the steps.

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