We always hear about Meta Title or Meta Description when we create a new page on a website ...
- Great, but what is it?
- What is the purpose of writing all these informations?
- What will it bring us?
It's time to unveil these meta tags that might be the answer to your SEO problems!
Some definitions
What is a meta title (also called Title Tag)?
It's not very complicated, it's the name of your page as it will appear in the search engine. It is the one who will attract the attention of your future visitors (it must be optimized!). To be effective, a good title must not exceed 70 characters (without being too short either), it must be unique, relevant and attractive. Without abusing it, don't hesitate to slip a small keyword in your title to improve your SEO.
How to write a good meta description?
The description tag is a brief summary of your page that will be displayed below the title in the search result. Tip: Don't spin around the bush. A clear and concise description will be much more meaningful for your future visitors. Especially since Google only displays up to 160 characters. As for the meta title, it must be unique to have a better impact! (Good to know: avoid "double quotation marks" because Google will often delete everything that is behind ... who knows?)
Fortunately, there are crawl tools that are there to help you improve the SEO of your site by reviewing the content of each of your pages.
Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions Crawl Tools for Your Website
What is the point of a website crawl tool?
Each tool is different, but its purpose is to explore your site in every nook and cranny to point out errors, broken links, titles and missing meta descriptions, untagged images ... Thanks to this analysis, you will be able to make the necessary changes to perfect each of your pages and improve your SEO!
We tried someone for you! We have chosen to focus on tools that offer a free version that is well enough developed to allow you to try them easily. There are other very good tools especially used by professionals:
- Ahrefs does not offer a free version but is rather effective to improve your online presence and keep an eye on your competition.
- SEMrush is the all-in-one marketing tool. Their free version is rather complete but limits the number of sites to explore. Even though it's a tool for Web Marketing professionals, you can try it ?
1. Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool
SEO Spider is a downloadable application on all operating systems that allows you to analyze all pages of the same website (it even allows you to make pretty diagrams and word cloud with your URLs!)
Our opinion:
- Interesting tool to have an overview on the entire map of its website.
- Very useful for detecting broken links, missing titles and meta descriptions, but also for spotting non-indexable pages.
- Quite complete but also a little complex ... fortunately there is this little guide to help you find your way ?
Pricing:
- The free version is quite effective but is limited to the analysis of 500 URLs at a time (which is still good). It leaves access to a lot of options! Try it here ?
- License $149/year: It allows an even more thorough and long-term analysis. But for a simple analysis of your site, the free version is sufficient in our opinion ? More info here!
2. Visual SEO
Visual SEO is another downloadable application mainly for Windows 7 and up. The version on macOS is still Beta although it works very well anyway. What's nice is that the application is available in 7 different languages!
Our opinion:
- Pretty intuitive tool in the background
- Effective to find anomalies present on a website (broken links, redirected pages ...)
- Need help? They made a small “Getting Started” Guide that should help you out ?
Pricing:
- The free version still offers a good overview of the problems to be fixed on its site. It's nevertheless limited to the analysis of 500 URLs but it is a good start to take your first steps in SEO. Download it here!
- Annual license for professional $222: Although the free version is quite well-developed, the pro version brings, among other things, analytical tools related to Google Analytics that can be very useful.
3. SiteCondor SEO
Even if it's primarily a paid download application, SiteCondor SEO is also a free WordPress plug-in! It's currently available only in English and Japanese
Our opinion:
- Very useful to have a direct overview of the SEO work done on a WordPress site
- It allows you to receive weekly reports on the SEO of your WordPress site and makes small recommendations as needed to help you improve it.
Pricing:
- The WordPress plug-in is free! It is downloadable here!
- There are 4 possible paid subscriptions for the application with different offers and possibilities (if you're interested, it's here!)
4. MozBar
The MozBar is an extension only available on Chrome. Before being an extension, Moz is a paid SEO analysis tool. It allows a quick and intuitive analysis of the site live! Simply, it supposes that we create an account to have access to more analysis options but even without, we can already see what is missing on the page in terms of SEO.
Our opinion:
- Tool practical but perhaps lacking information at first glance (you must dig a little)
- Useful to see the different titles and links on the site thanks to their live highlighting tool
- Intuitive once we see the results on our Moz account
Pricing:
- Free extension and available here!
- Pro version under several subscriptions. Go see them here (but it's not cheap)!
5. SEO Quake
SEO Quake is an extension available on Chrome, Firefox, Safari. It allows a live analysis of the page you are consulting.
Our opinion:
- Intuitive and rather flattering tool: you'll find lots of little messages that will flatter your ego if you've done things right ?
- The small menu bar that appears at the top of each page makes the analysis even easier.
- Little extra: Associated with SEMrush, it even indicates your number of appearances in the various search engines!
Pricing:
- Free and available here!
6. SEO META in 1 CLICK
SEO META in 1 CLICK is an extension available only on Google Chrome that gives you some hints about the SEO of the page you are currently viewing.
Our opinion:
- Convenient to have a quick overview of the meta of a particular page (the length of the title, the meta description, the presence of keywords, ...)
- Quick, just click on the icon of the extension (once it's installed) to get the information of the page we consult.
- Simply informative, it does not fit in enough details ... In addition, you don't get an overview of your site.
Pricing:
- Free and available here!
It's your turn !
Change your titles if they are too long or too short, rewrite your meta descriptions to make them effective by thinking of your potential visitors, add the right keywords to the right places to improve your SEO ... Don't stuff these keywords information, you will lose to the change because the algorithms will reduce your reach and your users will perceive your relentlessness! ?
All these little tools help you to target SEO problems on your sites that you haven't noticed, to allow you to make the necessary changes to become an organic SEO professional!
Now that your website is optimized, why not thinking about doing a small marketing campaign to get people to know you? We have an article that explains to you how to organize it (nice, isn't it?). It's this way! :-)
Need help to improve your presence on search engines?
The 8P team is well on the subject and will be happy to do a complete analysis of your website to make you (almost) independent in the search results. ?