How to Stand Out in Search Results

Stand out in the crowd

Getting your business website on the first page of Google search engine results is a BIG DEAL – the ULTIMATE goal for every business owner. As your company website’s chief SEO champion, you need to know how to stand out among your competition as consumers eagerly scour the web for brands that speak to them. Furthermore, you want traffic to flock to your site in order to actually click THROUGH it, not just ON it! 

 

Search engines such as Google pull data from your website to list in the search results. There are two key elements that form the title and description that show up on the results pages: 

 

  • Title Tag: an HTML code tag that allows you to give a web page a title. It is located in the browser title bar as well as in the SERPs (search engine results pages). Optimization of title tags is important as they play a crucial role in affecting your organic ranking (SEO). 

 

  • Meta Description: an HTML tag summarizing webpage content. It’s normally around 160 characters long (referred to as a “snippet”), appearing below your page title in SERPs.

 

Both your title tag and meta description should be unique for each page on your website. Don’t use the same title tag and meta description on every page!  That’s a no-no!

 

Here are some tips to remember when authoring your title tags and meta descriptions:

 

  1. Keep things simple and watch the length. Don’t be curt, but don’t get long-winded either. 
  2. Once again, don’t repeat titles & descriptions. Make them unique to each page.
  3. Study up on relevant keywords!
  4. Put the most important words first in title tags.
  5. Be sure to include your brand name in title tags.
  6. Entice users to click. 
  7. Write for people!

 

Good meta descriptions are written almost like a mini advertisement. The goal is to entice consumers to click through them. For example:

 

Lonely Planet does a fabulous job implementing some pretty basic tips. Optimal title tag length is between 50-60 characters. Check! Anything in excess of 60 characters will cause the title tag to become truncated in some search engines. 

 

The Lonely Planet title tag and meta description both accurately reflect the content on the page itself. Consumers don’t like to be duped, so don’t write about free monkeys in your title tags and meta descriptions only to have a user click through to discover that nothing you’re offering is free and you don’t stock monkeys. You need to be very clear with your tags and descriptions about your brand and what you have to offer. Don’t get customers excited about something you never intend to offer! That’s just rude!

 

Be sure you are creating UNIQUE title tags and meta descriptions. This practice is one of the best ways you, as a business owner, can entice consumers to click on your website in search engine results. If your stuff looks just like everyone else’s, consumers won’t be compelled to click on your website. No one wants to look at 100 pictures of the same dog over and over again. The same principle applies with your meta descriptions and title tags. 

 

As a business owner, you take pride in what you have to offer and that which makes your brand different. Placing these concepts into simple phrases should be a fun and easy task that is sure to make all the difference for browsing consumers and your bottom line!