A search result is three lines wide: a title, an address and a description. That is everything someone sees of your page before deciding whether to click. It is also the only part of your website where you decide exactly what it says, and it is where most sites leave points on the table.
This article covers the parts that make up that result: the page title, the meta description, the URL, the language of the page and the favicon. They are the checks a report lists under “Search appearance”.
The page title
The title sits in the source as <title> and is the clickable headline in the search result. It is the strongest on-page signal about what the page covers, and at the same time it is your advertisement. Leave it out and Google writes one from the page content, which means you no longer decide what it says.
Two things go wrong in practice. Too short is the first: “Home” or “Services” tells a searcher nothing and gives no reason to click. Too long is the second: Google shortens titles at around sixty characters on desktop and sooner on mobile. It measures pixels rather than characters, so a title in capitals or wide letters is cut earlier.
What works: put the words that set you apart first and your company name last. “Roof repair in Etten-Leur | Wener Dakbedekking” reads better than “Wener Dakbedekking | Home | Roofer, roof repair, roof insulation, North Brabant”. Give every page a title of its own: the same title on ten pages is a reason for Google to replace it.
Aim for twenty to sixty-five characters. Google sets out its own reasoning in the documentation on title links.
The meta description
The description under your title is not a ranking factor. Google has confirmed that more than once: it will not move you up the page. What it does do is decide whether someone clicks your result or the competitor’s underneath, which in the end is the same money.
Aim for a hundred and twenty to a hundred and sixty characters. Shorter wastes the space; longer is cut off mid-sentence. Write one per page and put something concrete in it: where you work, what it costs, how quickly you can be there. “We are a dynamic company with an eye for quality” says nothing; “Roof repair in Etten-Leur and the surrounding area, on site within 48 hours, fixed price agreed up front” says everything.
Bear in mind that Google regularly replaces your description with a fragment from your own text when that fits the search better. That is not a penalty, and it is no reason to skip writing one: in the cases where it does use yours, it is your sentence that earns the click. Google explains its choices under snippets.
The URL
Your page address appears in the result as a breadcrumb trail. /services/roof-repair tells a searcher where they are going; /index.php?p=42&cat=7 does not. Use words people understand, separate them with hyphens and keep the path short.
Two common mistakes. The first is buying keywords in the domain name: Google has made clear that words in the domain itself have hardly any effect, so cheap-roof-repair-etten-leur.com earns you nothing your own name does not. The second is rewriting existing URLs for SEO. Only do that when there is a real reason, and then always with a 301 redirect from old to new, or you throw away what those pages have built up over the years.
The language of the page
A page should state in its source which language it is written in: <html lang="en">. Search engines use it to show you to the right audience and screen readers use it to pick the right pronunciation. It is one attribute, and it is either there or it is not.
If you publish in more than one language, hreflang comes with it: a pointer from each page to its translations, so Google shows the Dutch version to Dutch searchers and the English one to everyone else.
The favicon
On mobile, Google puts a small icon next to your result. Without one there is a grey globe sitting between your competitors’ logos. A favicon of 48 by 48 pixels, or a multiple of it, linked from your home page is enough. It is five minutes of work and it is the difference between a brand and an anonymous line of text.
What you can do today
- Search for your own company and look at your result the way a customer sees it.
- Check that every page that matters has its own title of twenty to sixty-five characters, with the distinguishing word first.
- Write a description of a hundred and twenty to a hundred and sixty characters for those same pages, with a concrete offer in it.
- See whether your URLs are readable. Leave existing addresses alone unless you set up redirects.
- Check that a favicon exists and that the language in the source is correct.
Want to know where your page stands on these points without digging through the source yourself? Run the free SEO check: you get your score in seconds, with what was measured for each part.
