Title and meta description generator

Ten lines for one page: five titles and five descriptions, each pair taking a different angle on the same page (the outcome, the audience, the task, the comparison, the plain name). A model writes them from three things: the page as it stands (its title, h1, description and first words), the search you say the page should answer, and anything you insist the options must say.

Every option comes with its length. A title over 60 characters and a description outside 120 to 155 are flagged, because those are the lengths Google tends to show whole on a results page. The rules the writer follows are the ones on the title and description guides of this site: the search phrase near the front, sentence case, one plain promise, no exclamation marks, no marketing words, no site name at the end.

It is a writer, not a checker. To see what a page carries today, and how the snippet renders on a phone, use the title and meta description checker; this tool shows the current title, h1 and description at the top of its answer so the two can be read together.

The title and the description are the only words of a page most searchers ever read. On a small site, the pages that are shown thousands of times and clicked a few times are almost always pages whose title says the product name and nothing else, or whose description was left to Google to cut from the first paragraph. Rewriting them is the cheapest change in search: no new page, no links, no code, and the effect shows in Search Console within weeks.

The hard part is not the rules but the angle. A title that says what the page is for the person searching beats a title that says what the company calls the page. Five angles side by side make the choice visible: one of them is usually the one you would have written after a coffee and a walk.

1. 1

   Paste the page URL

   The page is fetched once, like a crawler would, and its title, h1, description and first 1,500 characters are read. A page that renders only with JavaScript gives the writer little to work from; the options will say so by being generic.

2. 2

   Name the search

   The phrase the page should answer, as someone would type it. With a URL it is optional; without one it is required, and the writer writes for a page that answers it plainly.

3. 3

   Add what must be said

   A free plan, no card, a region, a certification. One line. The writer works it into the options that can carry it.

4. 4

   Read the ten options

   Titles first, then descriptions; the description at a position pairs with the title at the same position. Lengths are counted and the flagged ones are marked in red.

5. 5

   Pick, correct, publish

   Copy the pair you want, change anything that is not true of the page, and set it in the page's head. Then watch the page's impressions and clicks in Search Console over the next four weeks.

A worked example. yourproduct.com/pricing carries the title "Pricing" and no description. With the search "invoicing app for freelancers" and the note "free plan, no card", the options come back along the lines of "Invoicing app for freelancers: free plan, no card" for the title and "Send invoices, track payments and get paid on time. Start free with no card, upgrade when the work grows." for the description. Fifty-two and one hundred and eleven characters; the second is a little short, and adding what the paid plan brings takes it into range.

• Ten checks an hour from one address, and a budget for the day for everyone: the writer is a model and each call costs a little. When the day's budget is spent the tool says so and comes back at midnight UTC.
• One page at a time. A site with two hundred pages to retitle is a job for a report, not a form.
• The page is read as a crawler reads it: without JavaScript, the first two megabytes, ten seconds at most. A page behind a login or on a private address cannot be read.
• The options are suggestions. Google rewrites titles it finds unhelpful and cuts descriptions it finds long; the best defence is a title that says what the page is.

Each run is a model call that costs a few cents at a provider, so the tool runs for a signed-in account only: a free account, no card, five paid checks a day and forty a month across the paid tools, counted per account. The same input asked twice in a day is answered from memory and is not counted. The free check on the home page is not counted either. A day's budget for the tool as a whole is capped as well, so a busy day ends with a plain message rather than a bill.