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WASHINGTON DC, WordPress and SEO expert tips and advice. 

Have you ever studied a Google results page?  Typically, there is a list of 10 links and the structure of the results page is something like a series of these listings: 

The question are: 

1. How is the text in the link derived?
2. How do you control that information?
3. How is the snippet information derived?
4. How is that controlled or specified?
5. Does the link text or title tag affect your search performance?
6. Does the snippet or meta description tag help you get found on Google?

Answers: 

1. The text link is derived from your Title tag, which lives in the head section of your source code. 
2. If you are using WordPress, which I highly recommend, that information is controlled by the Subject line.  When you are in your WordPress admin dashboard and you create a new post, there is a subject line, “Enter title here”. This is where you enter the title tag information.

   

3. The snipped information is derived dynamically by Google.  If you have not set or specified the meta content=”description” tag, then Google will simply grab whatever information it can find – usually the first 150 characters of text in the content page. 
4. This information can be controlled within WordPress.  If you are using the All-in-one-SEO plugin on WordPress, then you can specify this content=”description” tag and control the Google search results snippet.

   

5. The Title tag is probably the single most important piece of information on your web page that helps you get found on Google according to your most important keyword search terms.  So, if you know the search terms that your targeted website audience will use to look for a website like yours, then this information needs to be in the subject line or title of your blog post.  You have about 70 characters to work with, so be concise with your headings. 
6. The description tag does not necessarily help you get found on Google.  However, it does affect your conversion or click-through rate.  The information in the description tag (or the snippet information on the Google results page) will often influence whether or not a Google visitor clicks on your link or some other link.  So, while this snippet doesn’t help you get found, it does help convert Google visitors to visitors on your website.