Title Tag and Meta Description Formulas

What's inside

A single page of formulas you complete by replacing the words in brackets:

• Ground rules: a unique title and description for every page, search terms first and your brand name last, and titles of roughly 50 to 60 characters and descriptions of roughly 120 to 160, as a working guide rather than a fixed limit.
• Formulas by page type: title and description patterns for service, location, product, category, how-to, comparison, homepage and contact pages.
• A worked example: a completed title and description for a fictional heating business.
• What to avoid: duplicate titles, keyword lists, capitals and symbol clutter, and offers that have already ended.

Who it's for

Anyone writing or rewriting page titles: business owners, copywriters and marketers updating pages in their website's content management system. You don't need any SEO tools to use it.

How to use it

Pick the formula that matches the page type, fill in the brackets with what the page offers, and read the result aloud to check it sounds natural. Google may rewrite a title that doesn't reflect the page, and most snippets are drawn from the page content rather than your description, so accuracy matters more than squeezing in keywords. Start with your most visited pages and any that share a title.