Some of you may have noticed that it is now possible to mark up your titles (and even meta descriptions) in bold. For most users, this probably comes as news, as examples are still few. It appears that Google is currently allowing titles and meta descriptions to be marked up using Unicode. Even though it is relatively early, we find this far too interesting not to write an article about.
Titles and meta descriptions are bolded using Unicode
So what exactly is happening? For the past few months, site owners have been able to mark up their titles using Unicode. In some cases, the result is a bolded title and/or meta description.
For those of us in the SEO industry, this is very exciting, as changes to the search results page always affect our work to some degree. We therefore decided to test this with one of our blog articles and got the following result:
As you can see above, our post is the only one that is bolded, which makes it stand out more clearly than the other results. In theory, this should have a positive impact on the click-through rate for our post, but this remains to be seen.
Unfortunately, the bolded titles do not work consistently, and at the time of writing, the titles are not bolded, as you can see in the desktop example below.
Why is it a good idea to mark up titles in bold?
By marking up your titles in bold, you increase the visibility of your page in the search results. A bold title stands out more effectively than a page that does not have one, provided that not all titles on the results page have implemented bold styling. Standing out from competitors on the search results page is often associated with a higher click-through rate.
Another advantage of bolding your titles is that users may perceive it as Google doing the bolding and thus giving its approval, at least while the phenomenon is still relatively new. Historically, Google has bolded parts of the meta description based on the search query. We believe this may influence people’s clicking behavior initially, before they learn that it is not Google that is bolding the titles.
Are there any disadvantages to marking up titles in bold?
It is still too early to say with certainty whether there are any disadvantages, and what those might be. Historically, Google has rarely appreciated over-optimization of websites, so anyone who wants to test implementing this should make sure to do so in moderation, at least initially.
One reported drawback of titles where Unicode has been implemented is that they do not appear to work well across all browsers. For example, phones with older browsers have not always been able to properly render the content of the title.
Having titles in bold also affects them in terms of pixels (marginally). This means that a bold title becomes slightly longer in Google’s eyes than it would be as regular text. This is important to keep in mind if you are right at the pixel limit for title length and choose to bold your titles. In that case, Google may truncate the titles and therefore not display the full title.
How do you implement bold text in your titles?
If you want to bold your titles, you can proceed as follows:
- Convert the title text to Unicode and use, for example, the “Math sans bold” font
- Change the title on the page
- Go to Google Search Console and request indexing of the page where the title has been changed
- Wait…
The last step is also the step we are uncertain about. As Google still appears to be experimenting with this feature, it is not guaranteed that your title will be bolded.
What is the next step for this feature?
Whether it is Google experimenting with bold text on the search results page or someone who has found a loophole remains unclear. Google appears to be allowing this type of markup for certain sites for the time being. The examples we show above, as well as others we have observed, are at the time of writing no longer displayed in bold. This may change, however, so keep an eye out.
We believe that future development will depend on whether Google decides to roll this out on a larger scale, how well it is received by users, and whether it is abused by site owners over-optimizing their titles. Google will certainly not want the entire search results page, with both titles and meta descriptions, to be in bold, especially if it affects the click-through rate for ads.
What do you think about this new feature? Leave a comment and tell us what you think and believe about bolding titles and meta descriptions.
