Titles and meta descriptions, in bulk

Titles and meta descriptions are the best first job for an assistant. There are many of them, each follows simple rules, and the checks are mechanical. Six of the checks in Bluprent's audit live here. The full list is on the audit checks page.

The rules, and where they come from

The audit applies these limits, counted in characters including spaces:

• A title of 30 to 60 characters.
• A meta description of 70 to 160 characters.
• Every title different from every other title, and the same for descriptions.

These are the audit's rule of thumb, not Google's. Google's documentation says there is no limit on title length and none on description length. It cuts them off to fit the reader's device width, so a long one is shown clipped. It also rewrites titles it finds missing, out of date or not matching the page, and it builds the snippet shown under the title from the page text unless it judges the description better. So the limits keep you safely inside what is usually shown. They do not guarantee what Google shows.

What each check costs

Each check is one issue however many pages it hits. Forty pages with a title outside the range cost 5 points, and so does one. That has a practical consequence: if the duplicates come from a template that adds the same text to every page, or a plugin setting that falls back to the site name, fix the template and the whole issue clears. Do not rewrite forty titles by hand to clear a duplicate that one setting caused.

Rewrite everything in one pass

Export one row per page from your audit or a crawler: URL, H1, current title, current description. Add the main phrase for each page from the keyword map in the last chapter. Paste a batch of 20 to 30 rows at a time. Larger batches make the assistant lose count.

Rewrite the title and meta description for each page below.

Hard rules. I will check them by counting characters, including spaces:
- Title: 30 to 60 characters.
- Meta description: 70 to 160 characters.
- Every title is different from every other title. Every description is different from every other description.
- Put the page's main phrase near the start of the title. Put the business name at the end only if it fits.
- Describe what is on the page. No claims, prices or guarantees that are not in the client brief.

Return a table: URL | new title | title length | new description | description length | one line on why.

Pages (URL | H1 | current title | current description | main phrase):
{paste rows}

Do not trust the length columns. Assistants miscount, and they do it confidently. That is what the second prompt is for.

Check your table. Count the characters of every title and every description again, one at a time. List every row where a title is outside 30 to 60 or a description is outside 70 to 160. List every pair of rows that share a title or a description, or whose titles start with the same four words. Then return a corrected table that contains only the rows that failed.

Then check with something that cannot be fooled. Paste the new titles into a spreadsheet and use a length formula, or just re-run the audit. A row that fails twice is usually one with a long business name; shorten the name in the title, or drop it.

One page that keeps getting clipped

Sometimes a title is inside the limit and Google shows something else. Look at what it shows, and compare it with the page's H1. Google tends to rewrite a title that says something different from the page. Fix the mismatch before you rewrite the title again.

The page's H1 is: {H1}
The title is: {current title}
In search results Google shows: {what Google shows}

Give me five alternative titles of 50 to 60 characters that put the main phrase "{phrase}" in the first 35 characters and agree with the H1. Then tell me which one you would use and why.

Read them before they go live

Google's guidance on generative AI content asks you to review titles, descriptions, structured data and alt text too, since they can show in search results. Read every line aloud once. A description that promises "the best prices" for a client who never said so is the kind of thing the rules in the brief are meant to stop, and the reading is how you catch the one that slips through.

Don't bother with

• The same description everywhere as a shortcut. Google says identical descriptions across a site are not helpful. Use a general one for the home page and one per page after that.
• Chasing the exact pixel width. It differs by device. Stay inside the character range and move on.
• Keyword lists in descriptions. A description is a sentence for a person deciding whether to click.

Next

• Chapter 5: Page content, headings and image alt text
• Fit a monthly metadata check into a care plan
• Google: influencing your title links (Google Search Central)