Meta tags two lines in Google's results
Meta tags are two lines for every page: the title, which Google shows as the blue headline in its results, and the description, the gray text under it. A person reads those two lines and decides whether to open your site or the one next to it. We don't hand meta title and description writing to a template. We write both by hand around the queries of each page, add an H1 that matches, and send everything back as a spreadsheet with URLs. It costs from $12 per page, and up to 50 pages take 2 days. Roholeva is a copywriting, web development and promotion studio, so we write meta tags knowing how both a search engine and a developer will handle them.
01 Basics
Meta tags are lines in a page's code that describe it to search engines and to people looking at the results. Two of them matter most. The title is the page's headline, visible in the browser tab and in search results. The description is the short summary Google usually shows under that headline.
Visitors never see these tags on the page itself, which is why they get forgotten. Yet they answer the question "is this worth a click?", and everything that happens afterward depends on that click. Every page needs its own pair. When the tags are missing, the search engine assembles a snippet from whatever fragments of text it finds, and the result is rarely flattering.
Put simply, meta tags are the shop window of each page in search. If the headline is empty, generic or cut off mid-word, people walk past, however good the page behind it is.
Next to them sits the H1, the headline on the page itself. It should match the title in meaning but not word for word. We write the three together so they never contradict each other.
02 In the results
A snippet is the address, the headline and the description together: this is how a page looks in search results. Below is the same category page of an online coffee shop before and after. The shop is invented and the example is for illustration.
harborroast.example › catalog › beans
Catalog | Harbor Roast Co. Online Store | Buy Cof...
Welcome to the Harbor Roast Co. online store. Here you will find a wide range of quality products at affordable prices. Feel free to...
harborroast.example › catalog › beans
Whole bean coffee roasted fresh: 60 blends | Harbor Roast
We roast every Tuesday and Friday and ship the same day you order. Arabica from Ethiopia, Colombia and Brazil, from $11 per 250 g. Delivery in 2 to 4 days.
03 Length
As a rule of thumb, aim for 50 to 60 characters in the title and 150 to 160 in the description. Google doesn't count characters, though. It limits the width of the line in pixels, so a "W" or an "M" takes more room than an "i" or a "t". A headline made of wide letters gets cut earlier than a plain one.
| Tag | Target in characters | What we account for |
|---|---|---|
| Title | 50–60 | About 600 pixels on desktop. The query and the main benefit go first |
| Description | 150–160 | Phones show less, so the point goes into the first 120 characters |
| H1 | up to 70 | Never truncated in results, but it should read in a single glance |
04 Formulas
There is no universal formula, because different pages answer different questions. These are the patterns we start from. They work for blogs, stores, service pages and landing pages alike.
| Page type | Title formula | What goes in the description |
|---|---|---|
| Service | Service + location + price or turnaround | Brand | What's included, what it costs, how fast, a call to act |
| Store category | Product + attribute + count | Brand | Range, prices from, shipping, returns |
| Product page | Type, brand, model, key feature | Who it's for, main spec, price, stock |
| Article | The answer, or a promise of one, plus the year | The first answer right in the snippet, and what's inside |
| Homepage | Brand + what you do + where | The main offer and one difference |
| Landing page | The offer: what, for whom, on what terms | Proof of the promise and the next step |
05 Rules
06 More examples
A service page and an article need different meta tags. In the first case the reader compares prices and turnaround, in the second they are looking for an answer. The companies, prices and terms below are all invented.
Services | Hale & Moore Legal | Chicago
LLC formation in Illinois in 3 days: from $390 | Hale & Moore
why: nobody searches for "services". The new title carries the query, the state, the turnaround and the price, which is everything lawyers get compared on in results.
In this article we will tell you about braces, what types there are and how to choose them. Read on to find out more on our website.
Metal braces cost from $3,000 per arch, ceramic from $4,200. We compare four types by price, how visible they are and how long treatment takes.
why: the description doesn't announce the article, it starts answering. The reader sees numbers in the results and clicks for the detail.
Men's winter jacket buy online | Northline. Buy a men's winter jacket at a great price. Fast shipping.
Men's winter jacket rated to -4 °F, sizes S–3XL | Northline. The insulation doesn't clump after washing and the hood detaches. Free returns within 30 days.
why: the first version repeats the keyword three times and says nothing. The second gives the temperature, the sizes and the terms people choose a jacket by.
07 Price
Meta tags start at $12 per page, and that covers the title, the description and the H1. Ten pages come to $120, fifty to $600 and a hundred to $1,200. Up to 50 pages are delivered in 2 days.
| Service | What's included | Turnaround | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meta titles and descriptions | Title, meta description and H1 matched to the page's queries | up to 50 pages in 2 days | from $12 / page |
| SEO copywriting | Keyword research, outline, copy, title and meta description | from 3 days | from $0.18 / word |
| Product descriptions | Unique description of up to 150 words, meta tags | from 10 descriptions a day | from $35 / description |
| Blog articles | Topic, outline, copy, fact-check, meta tags | 4–5 days | from $0.20 / word |
Meta tags can be generated from a template for pennies: "Buy [product] in [city] | [brand]". That is fine for thousands of near-identical pages, but on the pages that matter it loses to a line written by a person. Here is what the price includes:
08 The difference
Meta tags are the window display in search results. SEO copy is the page the click leads to. The first convinces someone to open the page, the second keeps them there and answers the query. The two are written together but solve different problems, which is why they are separate services.
If your site already has good text and the meta tags are default or missing, meta tags alone are enough: quick and inexpensive. If the text is weak, you need SEO copywriting, where meta tags are included in the price. For a store with a big catalog there are product descriptions, and for editorial content, blog articles.
Often meta tags are not enough because the problem sits deeper: a page duplicates another one, is blocked from indexing or loads slowly. In that case it is more useful to start with an SEO audit, which catches such things.
09 Google
Google may show a title and description other than the ones you set. That is normal. It substitutes its own version when yours looks too long, repeats the query, doesn't match the page or doesn't fit the particular search a person made.
The sensible response is not to guess at every case but to make the title and description so precise that rewriting them isn't needed. We write them from the substance of the page, without repetition and with a promise the page keeps. That lowers the chance of a swap, though it doesn't remove it: Google rewrites snippets often, the description most of all.
One more clarification. The description is not a direct ranking factor, but it affects the click, and the click affects how many people arrive. Google stopped using the keywords tag long ago, so there is no reason to fill it in.
10 AI
An AI meta tag generator will produce a hundred headlines in a minute. For a huge catalog that is reasonable as a first draft. But AI tends to repeat a pattern, ignore length limits and invent facts, such as "free shipping" that doesn't exist.
| What | How we handle it |
|---|---|
| Thousands of near-identical product pages | Template plus a human spot check |
| Homepages, services, landing pages, articles | By hand only |
| Checking length, duplicates and missing tags | With tools, conclusions drawn by a person |
We write the meta tags for important pages ourselves. We don't hand over machine-generated text as written by a person, and we check facts against your data.
11 Result
We deliver a table in a format you can pass to a developer or import into a plugin. Each row is one page.
| URL | Title | Description | H1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| /catalog/beans/ | Whole bean coffee roasted fresh: 60 blends | Harbor Roast | We roast every Tuesday and Friday… | Whole bean coffee |
12 Checking
To see a page's meta tags, right-click the page, choose "View page source" and look for the title tag and the meta name="description" tag near the top. Browser extensions show them as a list, and there are online meta tag checkers too.
Each platform keeps meta tags in a different place. In WordPress it is usually an SEO plugin such as Yoast or Rank Math. In Shopify it is the "Search engine listing" block on a product or collection page. In Wix and Squarespace you will find an SEO panel in the page settings. If you give us access, we can enter the table into the system ourselves.
13 Questions
They are lines in a page's code: the title, which appears in the browser tab and in search results, and the description, the summary under the headline. They are written for search engines and for the people deciding what to click.
Roughly 50 to 60 characters for the title and 150 to 160 for the description. The real limit is in pixels, not characters, because wide letters take more room. We put the important part first so that a cutoff doesn't spoil anything.
Query first, then a benefit or clarification, and the brand at the end. For a service: service + location + price or turnaround. For an article: the answer to the query or a promise of one. The table of formulas is above.
Answer the reader's main question in the first lines: price, turnaround, terms, outcome. Add a verb that invites action and don't repeat the title. Never promise what the page doesn't contain.
Not directly, but it affects the click. The more appealing the snippet, the more people open the page. The title carries more weight in helping Google understand what the page is about.
Use "View page source" in the browser, an extension or an online checker. Compare length, uniqueness and fit with the page's content. We also preview how each title looks in results before we deliver.
Because it thinks its own version suits a particular search better: yours is too long, repetitive or doesn't match the page. An accurate, honest title lowers the odds of a replacement, though it doesn't guarantee one will never happen.
From $12 per page, covering the title, description and H1. Fifty pages start at $600 and take 2 days. Large sites get a separate estimate.
For drafts or thousands of similar pages, yes, as long as length and facts are checked. For homepages, service pages and articles we recommend writing by hand, which is how we work.
In WordPress through an SEO plugin, in Shopify in the "Search engine listing" block, in Wix in the page's SEO settings. We hand over a table, and with your access we can enter the data ourselves.
No. Google dropped it long ago, so filling it in is pointless. Put the queries in the title, the H1 and the body text instead.
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