The Title Of This Story Is Much Too Long For Google

Summary

The provided content outlines the importance of optimizing a story's title and description for search engines, specifically for Google, while publishing on Medium, by using the platform's SEO settings feature.

Abstract

The article discusses SEO best practices for Medium stories, emphasizing the need for a concise SEO title and a compelling SEO description to improve visibility and click-through rates from Google search results. The author notes that while Medium allows for lengthy and catchy titles that may perform well within the platform, these titles can be too long for optimal Google search performance. Medium provides an often-overlooked feature to adjust the SEO title and description post-publication, which can significantly impact the story's search engine performance. The author suggests keeping the SEO title to 40-50 characters and the SEO description to 140-156 characters, incorporating relevant keywords and summarizing the content effectively.

Opinions

The author believes that the default story title on Medium may not be suitable for Google search due to its length and potential lack of commonly searched keywords.
It is the author's opinion that the SEO title and description are crucial for improving a story's search engine performance and should be crafted with care.
The author implies that many Medium users are unaware of or neglect to use the SEO settings feature, which is a missed opportunity for better search engine optimization.
The author's approach to SEO settings adjustment is presented as a simple and effective solution that can be completed in a short amount of time.
The author highlights the importance of brevity and keyword inclusion in the SEO title and description for better search engine rankings and user engagement.

The Title Of This Story Is Much Too Long For Google

But it does work for Medium.

In this brief story I outline best practices for simple, and effective Search engine optimization (SEO) that are all too often ignored.

A catchy title for a Medium story. May not fare well as a title that will get recognition by Google and the story description taken from your opening paragraph is usually not what you want Google to look at.

Fortunately Medium provides a simple and effective solution which is far too often overlooked.

After you hit submit and your story is published or sent to a publication for review. You should take a few moments to adjust SEO title and SEO description.

Open the editing menu the 3 little dots at the top of your screen and scroll down to more options. Then go to SEO settings. When you are finished adjusting your title and description hit save for each setting and you are done.

The SEO Description is used in place of your Subtitle on search engine results pages. Good SEO descriptions utilize keywords, summarize the story and are between 140-156 characters long.

After you hit submit and your story is published or sent to a publication for review. You should take a few moments and adjust SEO title and SEO description. Open the editing menu the 3 little dots…

Description (199):

I rewrote the title for Google:

How To Adjust SEO Settings | Jim McAulay | Medium

Title preview (49)

Here’s the description

You can maximise your exposure on Google by adjusting the SEO title and the SEO description written by Jim McAulay for Illumination and Medium

Description preview (140)

In less than 5 minutes you can rewrite the title and the description so that your article will have the best chance at creating traffic from Google.

Jim McAulay🍁 says: It’s a 5 minute walk from my house to the pub,and its a 45 minute walk from the pub to my house. The difference is staggering.

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The Title Of This Story Is Much Too Long For Google

SEO Settings

SEO Title

The SEO Title is used in place of your Title on search engine results pages, such as a Google search. SEO titles over 60 characters will be truncated. SEO titles between 40 and 50 characters with commonly searched words have the best click-through-rates.

SEO Description

The SEO Description is used in place of your Subtitle on search engine results pages. Good SEO descriptions utilize keywords, summarize the story and are between 140-156 characters long.