Writing page titles, headings and meta descriptions effectively

Question

I read somewhere that page titles and main page heading shouldn't be identical, but they should be consistent with each other, and it's this idea of consistent that has me a little confused.

If I create a h1 page heading that clearly describes what the page is about and uses all the best practises, should I then copy that h1 straight into my page title and either:

Leave the title as an exact copy of the h1
Or still, copy the h1, but modify it slightly and hype it up with some marketing speak to try and help improve CTR

Also, directly after the h1, I write a page summary that highlights the pages key concepts, who the intended target audience is, why they should care, etc.

Should I then take this page summary and paste it into the meta-description and ask the same two questions as I did above for the title?

Does this answer help? https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/74313/improve-google-ranking-for-general-vs-specific-keywords/74334#74334 — closetnoc, Apr 05 '18 at 15:58
As well, be sure to write in full sentences and not in a broken keyword stuffing manner. Write for humans. — closetnoc, Apr 05 '18 at 16:00
Thank you closetnoc for your link. I'm not entirely sure that it did answer my question but it was still helpful, so again thank you — Samuel_C_1234, Apr 05 '18 at 17:33
Note that the title should contain more than just the main content heading (whether identical or not): the site name (and possibly metadata like the category etc.) — unor, Apr 05 '18 at 20:56

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 05 '18 at 19:10

You want your h1 tag to best describe what your page is about to a human in a short and concise message.

Your title tag is used to get people to click on your search results.

Both tags are also used to target keywords.

As a result, because of the similarities between both tags, I think that it is ok to have both be identical or close to it. Often times you will see websites put their brand name in the title tag but not the h1.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 06 '18 at 07:11

What I would recommend is, use an h1 tag that briefly describes the page, for example "Resources and articles" or "Shopping Main Page". Then:

Put a good title on your page that includes some variation of your keyword(s) choice. This should be enticing to your visitors. For example, instead of "Shopping" you could say something like "This Way to Shop Nirvana". (Yes, it's cheesy, but I came up with it just now. Bear with me.)

For all of your pages, use the meta description, and don't skimp. In the meta description you want to say what the page is and what value it will bring to the customer. For example, on our Shopping example, the meta description could say "Home page for our online store. We offer a wide range of women's clothes for all active women. Plus we provide a great shopping experience and special online savings." You have, I think, 255 characters so use them. And again, we included the keyword(s).

Writing page titles, headings and meta descriptions effectively

2 Answers2