Different title tags and meta descriptions for desktop and mobile?

[alex1978]

Is it possible to use different title tags and meta descriptions for mobile users? For Example: In the SERP for desktop you'll see the desktop title tags and meta descriptions, but in the SERP for mobile you'll the mobile versions of the webpage.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Hi Alex,

This really depends on how the mobile site is created, but I would suggest you have a read of this MOZ post that talks about optimising a site for mobile.

-Andy

[sachin-sv]

Hi Alex,

Yes, you can.

In fact, I will recommend to create different tags for both. Search pattern is different for mobile & desktop visitors. Mobile visitors are to be looking for different results than desktop visitors so it is important to do your keyword research for mobile traffic before creating the tags.

Mobile screens are smaller, there are fewer characters displayed in the SERPs. To adapt to the smaller screen size, it's important that your meta tags be formatted in a mobile-friendly style. Your title will be broken up into 2, possibly even 3 lines on a mobile site. You should take this into consideration when writing your title tags to make sure your page title is visually appealing and makes sense on 2 lines.

The number of characters Google allots for title tags has also changed. Instead of getting 65-70 characters to work with, titles are now measured in pixels.

Also, there is less room for meta descriptions on a mobile site than on a desktop site. Try to write shorter tags to avoid potential issues with your mobile site.

Hope this will help.

[lautman]

It's a great question and as the article Andy mentioned points out, there are benefits to optimizing your titles and metas for mobile.  However if the site is responsive, then there is only one page and therefore only one title and description.  If you serve different versions then you can do it.  You'd need to host the mobile version on something like m.example.com or do what Google calls "Dynamically Serving Different HTML On The Same URL".  You can learn more here: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details.

-M