Key Takeaways:
- SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
- A solid SEO strategy helps you make the most of your website marketing.
- Title Tags and Meta Descriptions give searchers a preview of what your web pages are about.
- Yoast is a free plugin that helps you improve your SEO by adding SEO titles and meta descriptions, as well as other features.
What is SEO?
It’s a buzzword you’ve probably heard 1000 times before, but what does SEO mean? SEO stands for search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the operation of boosting your website pages and blog posts to increase the amount of free, organic traffic you receive from various search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
It’s a way of leveraging consumer behavior to bring your business into the limelight. To mount a successful SEO strategy, you need to anticipate what your customers might be searching for and the words or phrases they’ll use to do it. With Technology Therapy Group, for example, we want to show up in the results when people search for “digital marketing for small businesses” or “how to get started with digital advertising” or “marketing help.” So, it’s important that we use those phrases on our web pages and in the title tags and meta descriptions we set for those pages.
How do you set up title tags and meta descriptions? We’ll show you in this quick tutorial video!
What are SEO Titles and Meta Descriptions?
You’ve seen then plenty of times if you’ve ever used a search engine, but you may not have known them by their formal names. Here’s a quick rundown of what exactly title tags and meta descriptions are, and when you and your customers see them:
- Title Tags – Title Tags, also known as SEO Titles, appear above the link to your website on the SERP. They immediately signal to searchers what your page is about. The SEO Title doesn’t need to perfectly match the actual title you chose for a blog or web page. In fact, it provides you with another opportunity to reword search phrases for even better search performance. Just make sure the title you choose is actually relevant to what’s on the page.
- Meta Descriptions – Meta Descriptions are the small blurbs that appear underneath your website on the SERP that includesa sneak peak of what readers will see on the page iteself. It is designed to provide users with a summary of the content on your page so that they know if the page will answer their question, get them to the product they want, or provide the information they are looking for.
What is a SERP? That’s the Search Engine Results Page! When you type an inquiry into Google, the page you land on with all the links and brief glimpses into the pages’ contents knows as the SERP.
Why You Should Optimize for SEO
Optimizing your website for SEO makes it easier for search engines to calculate the purpose or goal of your page or blog. SEO helps establish a strong foundation for your website with a clean, effective user experience that is easily discoverable in search. As a result, the search engine can more easily and efficiently pair your content with the true intent of users’ online search requests (aka “searcher intent”).
"Yoast SEO gives you the tools to bring your content to the highest standards of SEO and overall readability."
What Does Yoast Do?
The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress offers you tools and features to boost your SEO. Some of these features influence the SEO of your whole site; other features help you to optimize individual posts and pages for search engines using SEO titles and meta descriptions, keywords, and more. It’s a powerhouse when it comes to optimizing SEO for small businesses, and we never launch a website without it!
It even works on existing pages, so you can go back an optimize your past blogs or other pages to achieve a better SEO score on content you’ve already created.
- TTG Tip:
Your meta descriptions should be around 150 characters in length so they can be fully seen in Google previews, and your SEO titles should be about 60 characters. Use that space wisely! Try to incorporate keywords and search phrases that will help connect your page with the people who need it most.
Want to Learn More?
Creating an email marketing strategy that works for your small business can be tricky. Still, Technology Therapy Group is here to help with email marketing tips to empower your business.
Looking for More Plugins That Make Marketing Easy?
When Yoast brings new customers to your website, you need a way to keep in contact with them easily! Plugins help to expand the functionality of your website, so we’re always happy to share some of our tried-and-true favorites with you. Along with Yoast, Gravity Forms is always on that list of recommendations! It’s a form builder for WordPress, and a popular choice on many of the top WordPress websites because it allows you to:
- Easily customize forms with a drag-and-drop style editor
- Generate leads, take payments, create polls, and more
- Integrate your other apps and platforms for seamless communication
- View form entries directly from your WordPress dashboard
Gravity Forms is as confident as we are that you’ll absolutely love what they’re offering. And with a 30-Day Risk Free Guarantee, you have a whole month to see for yourself! What are you waiting for?