Title and description metadata
When you create a new article, title and description metadata are required. These metadata help improve SEO in Google and enable AI and readers to learn about your page. These metadata are not displayed on the article page (unless you show the page source in the browser).
Here’s how Google displays title and description metadata:
Title metadata
Title is an SEO friendly title of your article. It is not the same as a H1 (or page name). Think about title metadata as a phrase that answers a search query or to help AI find your page.
Requirements
-
Title metadata is title case and should not exceed 60 characters
A useful tool for counting characters is the Google SERP snippet optimization tool.
-
Do not add product names to a title. The pipe and product name are added automatically (from solution metadata in the
metadata.mdrepo file).
Examples
Based on content type:
- Concepts (nouns): How Segments Work, What Is a Fallout Report?, Get Started with Marketo Engage
- Tasks/how-to (verbs): Create a Segment, Upload Customer Attributes, Run a Fallout Report
Use search keywords in the title:
Your most important keywords should be closer to the beginning of the title. The primary keywords are the feature name or article’s subject, and words people type when searching. For example:
- How to, as in How to Upload a PDF
- Get Started with, as in Get Started with Activities in Target
- Feature explained, as in Page Views Metrics Explained
- Action feature, as in Download Data with CSV
- Guide to, as in Guide to Statistical Anomaly
Description metadata
Description is a learn to or learn about phrase, followed by a “call to action” sentence. These two brief sentences tell search engines and readers what your page is about. It describes the goal of the page. To improve SEO, mention keywords (feature or product name) in the description.
Because a description has length limitations and serves a different purpose from the first paragraphs, it should not be a copy of the first paragraph (particularly in product documentation). However, for videos and tutorials, your first paragraph can be a repeat of your description metadata.
Examples (quotation marks are here for clarity):
- Concept topic: “Learn about segments in Analysis Workspace. Discover ways to limit data in your tables and visualizations by applying segments to your data.”
- Task topic: “Learn how to create a segment in Analytics. Apply segments to a Workspace project.”
Write your titles and descriptions with SEO in mind. They must make sense as standalone search results or on landing pages, apart from the rest of the page.
Requirements
- Required for articles.
- Added under the
titlemetadata. - 160 characters maximum length. Ideally, the size is around 150-160 characters, but anything over 60 is acceptable. The goal is to use as much as the description as possible to target keywords for Google to rank the page higher.
- If you need to shorten or edit the description of an article that’s linked to on a landing page, use
short-description. Otherwise, thedescriptionvalue is used in landing page links to articles.
How Google uses title and description
Google and other search engines use these values to display content on the search engine results page (SERP). These metadata are not displayed on the article page (unless you show the page source in the browser).
Here’s how Google displays title and description metadata in results:
The pipe and product name are added automatically when a page is published. Given that the maximum title length is 60 characters (English), make sure that you consider the pipe and product name when determining your title length.
How ExL uses Title metadata titles
Title metadata is required for articles. It is intended to help improve SEO in Google. It’s also used in the browser tab.
Titles vs. page names
Here’s an example of how you might use a title and description metadata, along with an article title:
---
title: What is Cohort Analysis and How Does it Work?
description: Dig deeper into the data around your audience and break into related groups with Cohort Analysis in Adobe Analytics.
---
# Overview of Cohort Analysis
Note that the product name should not be used in the title metadata (because it’s added automatically). However, you might need the product name in the page name (H1) for clarity.
Including special characters in title or description metadata
In some instances, you might want your title or description value to include a special character such as a colon : or bracket [. Do one of the following:
-
Escape the character by adding the HTML entity, such as
:and[.OR
-
Wrap the title or description value in quotation marks. Example:
code language-none title: "Processing rules: Best Practices and Key Techniques"
Description for a home page
Here’s a standard description for a home page that you can use:
Search for self-help articles and tutorials on Adobe (your product name). Learn strategies and best practices from experts in live and on-demand video events.