You only get one chance to make a great first impression. What kind of impression are you making with your description on the SERP? First, let's find out just what a SERP is.
What is a SERP?
SERP stands for search engine results page. It's what you get when you type something into your search engine and press enter. As anyone who has every tried to find something via a search engine knows, a SERP can have many different elements such as images, maps, definitions, etc., but it basically contains three principal elements:
- the search query contained within a query box
- the organic SERP results
- sponsored SERP results (Search engine results page, 2016)
What Should be Your Page Title's Basic elements?
Don't be confused by the term "Page Title". Page Title is a meta tag (invisible text), not the title you see at the beginning of the visible page. Sometime content management systems are programmed to insert the visible title or <h1> into the meta tag Page Title.
There are certain key principles that you should adhere to when creating your meta tag Page Title to help with page rank and make your business listing in Google stand out. After all, your page title determines how you will be seen (or not seen) on the SERP.
- Your page title should have no more than 55 characters.
- You shouldn't repeat the same keyword more than once.
- Try to incorporate the name of your business is in your title.
- Your keyword should be strategically placed toward the beginning of the Page Title.
- Do not use all caps. The correct formatting would be Title Font Structure (First Letter of Each Word Capital).
What should the SERP description of your business look like?
Once you have your page title arranged properly, it's time to turn to your attention to the Page Description meta tag. To make sure that your business listing in Google catches the eye, here are some things to consider.
- The exact keyword you are targeting should be used only once in your description and contain variants like "B&B" and "bed and breakfast". The searched keywords will be highlighted in the description to stand out on the results page. That means the more variations you use, the more likely your listing is to match the search word.
- Your descriptions should be approximately 300 characters.
- Make sure that your description is enticing to make people want to click on it.
- HTML tags should not be used; text only.
- You should write the way you were taught in school. In other words, paragraph structure (First letter of each sentence capital). DO NOT USE ALL CAPS!
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