Many business owners have talked to me about the same thing: their website ranks on Baidu, but very few people click through. When they open the analytics dashboard, impressions are not low, but the click-through rate looks bad.
The problem is often not technical, but those two lines in the search results—the title and description. Users scan them, click if they seem useful, and scroll past if they look like an ad.
This article focuses on this small detail and explains practical approaches you can implement.
First, get clear: what users search for, not what you want to say
The most common mistake in writing titles is putting the company name and slogan first. For example, "XX Technology—Empowering the Future, Creating Win-Win Together." Users search for "which equipment repair company is good," and seeing this sentence does not match at all, so naturally they will not click.
The correct order is: put the words users will search for first, then put your differentiating information.
A specific scenario: a company website for an industrial equipment business was redesigned. The original title was "XX Machinery Co., Ltd. Official Website." After changing it to "Industrial Air Compressor Repair Manufacturer_24-Hour On-Site Service_XX Machinery," at the same ranking position, clicks increased noticeably. The difference is that the former is self-introduction, while the latter answers a need.
In practice, you can divide this into three steps:
- List 10 to 20 words users actually search for, drawn from search suggestions, related searches, and questions frequently asked by customer service
- Each page should focus on only one core keyword; do not be greedy
- Put the core keyword in the first half of the title, and put information that reduces decision cost in the second half, such as region, timeliness, or qualifications
Pitfall avoidance: do not turn the title into a keyword list just to stuff in terms. Titles that do not read smoothly actually have lower click-through rates.
The description is not a restatement of the title; it gives a reason to click
Many people write descriptions by rephrasing the title and saying it again. That is a waste. The role of the description is to fill in information the title did not finish and give a reason to act.
A good description usually contains three parts: what you can provide, why they should trust you, and what to do next.
For example, for a landing page for a booking-related mini program development project, the description could be: "Supports online time-slot selection, in-store verification, and SMS reminders; already integrated with WeChat Pay; you can view a demo before deciding." This sentence includes features, delivery method, and a low-threshold action.
Another example: for a service page for company website development, you could write: "Includes planning, design, development, launch, and one year of maintenance; source code delivered; redesign does not affect existing indexing." When technical leads see "source code delivered" and "does not affect indexing," they immediately feel relieved.
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Descriptions that are too long will be truncated; put key information in the first 60 characters or so
- Do not write unverifiable claims such as "industry-leading" or "number one brand"; users are already immune to them
- Write a unique description for each page; copying a template in bulk is the same as not writing one
Titles and descriptions must match the page content
This is the easiest point to overlook and the one that damages trust the most. The title says "free trial," but users cannot find the entry point after clicking; the description says "supports customization," but the page only has standard packages. Users will leave immediately, the bounce rate will rise, and rankings will be affected.
So before writing, look at the page first. Do not promise capabilities in the title that the page does not have.
If you are working on a complex project such as App development or a backend management system, the page itself contains a lot of information, so the title and description should focus on one specific scenario rather than listing all capabilities. For example, "Store Inspection App Development_Works Offline_Photo Documentation" is much more precise than "Professional App Development Service Provider."
By the way, when doing website development, it is best to include the title, description, and H1 in the delivery checklist rather than filling them in after launch. Changing a title looks simple, but in practice it requires resubmission, waiting for indexing, and observing data, so the cycle is not short.
How to verify whether you have written them well
You do not need to wait long; several signals can be observed:
- Click-through rate in the search resource platform, compared before and after the revision
- Changes in page dwell time and bounce rate
- Whether customer service or sales report that "customers ask the right questions right away"
If the click-through rate has not moved, first check whether the title matches the main keyword; if clicks have increased but lead quality is poor, it is likely that the description promised too broadly and attracted the wrong people.
Pitfall avoidance: change only one variable at a time. If you overhaul both the title and description at once, you will not be able to tell what caused the problem.
When it makes sense to bring in MIC Studio
If your team can consistently produce content and only lacks someone to write titles, you can try the methods above yourself; the cost is lower.
But in the following situations, working with an external team will be more efficient:
- The site has many pages, and the titles and descriptions of dozens or hundreds of pages need systematic review; changing them one by one manually is unrealistic
- The website is going to be redesigned or restructured, and titles and descriptions need to be planned together with the new information architecture, involving coordination between website development and SEO
- There are multiple entry points at the same time, such as mini program development, App development, and backend systems, and naming and description standards need to be unified
- You want to do a round of website security testing or reverse testing first, and at the same time organize the page information exposed online
MIC Studio's approach is to first review existing pages and data, then provide title and description proposals. We do not promise rankings; we are responsible only for the writing approach and delivery.
Three things you can do right away
1. Pick the five pages with the highest traffic, replace the first half of their titles with words users will search for, and check the click-through rate change after one week.
2. Write one sentence for each page explaining "why users should click you," put it in the first 60 characters of the description, and delete all adjectives.
3. Build a table recording each page's core keyword, title, description, and last modified date, so future revisions have a record to refer to.
Titles and descriptions are small details, but they determine whether the money you spend on your company website is seen by anyone. Get these two lines right first, then talk about everything else.