These three meta tags do the heavy lifting in how search engines and social platforms present your pages. Setting them well is the highest-ROI SEO tuning you can do.
Page Title (<title>)
- Most important tag for SEO.
- Appears as the clickable headline in search results.
- Aim for 50-60 characters; longer gets truncated.
- Pattern: Page Topic — Site Name.
- Include primary keyword near the front.
Meta Description
- The grey text below the title in search results.
- Aim for 150-160 characters.
- Doesn't directly affect ranking but heavily affects click-through.
- Should describe the page's content and invite the click.
- If left blank, Google may auto-generate one — usually less compelling.
Canonical URL
<link rel="canonical" href="...">tells search engines the authoritative URL for this content.- Resolves duplicate-content issues:
?utm_source=…variants, paginated lists, A/B-test URLs. - Set automatically by the platform for most pages.
- Override per page if you have a specific URL you want indexed.
Worked Examples
- Pricing page: Title “Simple, transparent pricing — Acme Workspace” (54 chars); description “See plans starting at £20/mo. Includes unlimited users, integrations and 24/7 support. Try free for 14 days, no card required.” (148 chars).
- Blog post: Title “How to set up your first datastore — Acme Workspace” (52 chars); meta description summarises the post benefits.
- Product page: Title with product name + key benefit. Description with price + 1-line USP.
- Marketing landing: Strong call-to-action in description (“Get started free in under 5 minutes”).
Tip: Test how your title and description look in real search results by using a tool like Google's Rich Results test, before publishing pages you care about.