Updated on: 15 September 2020

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Office for National Statistics

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Titles and metadata

How to write clear and concise titles, summaries and metadata that will help improve your content’s search engine optimisation.

Table of contents

  1. Keep it clear and simple
  2. Titles
  3. Summaries
  4. Meta description
  5. Keywords

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Meta description

A meta description is a HTML tag that provides a brief summary of the page. It appears in search engine results, such as Google, alongside the title and so needs to make sense out of context (that is, away from the ONS website). It helps users decide if the page is what they are looking for.

The meta description should be clear, concise and frontloaded. It should summarise clearly what the page is about. It must be fewer than 160 characters as otherwise the text may be cut off by search engines. The meta description can be the same as the page summary.

Estimates of employment, unemployment and economic inactivity for the UK for February to April 2020.

Related links

  • ONS website
  • ONS pattern library

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All content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0, except where otherwise stated