Where do they appear, and who decides what shows?
They appear in Google's results and in the browser tab, and Google decides in the end. Google Search Central's "Influencing your title links in search results" says Google mainly uses the title tag for the headline, but can draw on the page's main heading and other text when the title is missing, repeated across pages or does not describe the page. "Control your snippets in search results" says the same of the description: Google uses it when it describes the page better than the page's own text would, and writes its own snippet when it does not.
In practice, a clear, specific title that matches the page is used as written. A title that says "Home", or the same title on twenty pages, gets replaced.
What did a Castle Hill pool builder's rewrite do? (example figures)
A concrete pool builder in Castle Hill, with a crew of five and jobs averaging $85,000, had a home page titled "Home | Welcome" and no meta description, so Google made up a snippet from the footer: an ABN and a copyright line. The owner rewrote both:
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Title tag | Home | Welcome | Concrete pool builder, Castle Hill and the Hills District |
| Meta description | (none) | Custom concrete pools designed and built in the Hills since 2009. See 40 finished pools, and book a free site visit. |
| Impressions in 3 months | 4,200 | 4,500 |
| Clicks | 63 | 171 |
| Click-through rate | 1.5 percent | 3.8 percent |
The page was in roughly the same position for roughly the same searches. More than twice as many people clicked, because the listing now said what the business does and where. Bought as Google Ads clicks at around $9 each, the extra 108 visits would have cost about $970 over the quarter. The rewrite took half an hour, for a business where one booked site visit can turn into an $85,000 pool.
How do you write a good pair?
Write the title for the search and the description for the click. The title says what the page is and where, with the words a buyer types near the front and the business name at the end if it fits. The description answers the reader's next question (how much, or how soon) and gives the next step. Each page gets its own pair, written for that page: the service pages matter as much as the home page, because they match more specific searches.
You change both in your website builder's page settings, usually under SEO or Search. Google Search Console shows the effect in the Performance report, as clicks, impressions and CTR for the page.
Can CoraVision tell whether a new title worked?
CoraVision can see the visits a new title brings. It reads Google Analytics 4 each night, including visits by channel, so organic search visits to the page can be followed through the weeks after the change. The click-through rate lives in Search Console, which you open in a session with Cora. When a rewrite is in your action plan, pill mode points at the next field, and you type the words.
Questions
How long should a title tag be?
Google sets no character limit. It shows as much as fits the width of the results page and cuts the rest, so put the words that matter most at the start. SEO tools often suggest about 60 characters as a guide to what fits on a desktop screen.
Does the meta description help my ranking?
Google has said it does not use the meta description to rank pages, in a 2009 post on what was then the Webmaster Central blog. Its job is to persuade the person reading the results to click, which makes it an ad you do not pay for.