Web copy basics: title, description and H-tag headings
How to make your content search-engine friendly
The best text is useless if it isn’t found by your readers. Here’s how to optimise your meta tags for a better search ranking.
Emojis and special characters in title tags and meta descriptions
In 2015, they were banned from search results – now they are back: emojis in meta tags. The use of emojis in title and description is a matter of personal preference. But they definitely attract people’s attention and make your meta tags stand out from the rest of the search results.
Important: Only use them if they are relevant, funny or helpful. Using them incorrectly or too often can seem unprofessional and make your click-through rate drop rather than boost it. Just don’t overdo it – and make sure they go with your topic and content.
Calls to action (CTAs)
You should complete your meta description with a CTA if you want to attract a lot of visitors to your website and get them to follow through with a certain action. The objective of a “call to action” is to increase the click-through rate and encourage users to – hopefully – subscribe to your newsletter or purchase your product or service right from your website. The CTA should be part of the description and placed closer towards the end of your meta tag. It also needs to match the content of your website.
Applying H-tag headings correctly
How do I write a great SEO heading? The same way as you would a SEO text: not at all. Write your texts and headings for your personas and their needs. A heading that is hard to read and overstuffed with keywords won’t do you or your readers any good. Keep your headings short and easy to understand. This helps your readers grasp the content of your text much quicker.
A good heading structure serves as an important guide for the user and the search engine. The following H-tag headings support you in that:
- H1: should contain the focus keyword of your target page. This could be either the specific category of your web shop, for instance, “wool coat”. Or the key term for the topic of an article, like “Winter hiking in Salzburg”.
- H2: Other relevant or related terms can be found in H2. You can use it to ask the questions that your personas would ask or to include long-tail keywords.
- H3 & H4: are used for structuring the text and serve as (sub-)headings for less important topics