What is a meta description and why is it important?
A good meta description has the power to increase the click-through rate of your organic search results.
While meta data isn’t as important for SEO ‘rankings’ (how high you appear on Google) as it once was, the meta description still plays a significant role in on-page SEO.
What is a meta description?
A meta description provides a summary of a webpage.
It usually appears on Google’s SERP (earth engine results page) below the page’s URL and title.
Google can either choose to display content from the page or your meta description – whichever Google believes helps the user’s search intent.
Why isn’t Google using my meta description?
If Google doesn’t believe your meta description satisfies the searcher’s intent, it will generate a snippet for you.
Google may also bold keywords from the user’s search query. This helps users ‘scan’ the SERP and find the most relevant pages.
If you don’t want Google to use an alternative meta description in the SERPs, you can use the “nosnippet” meta tag. This tells Google to not show any text or image previews for that said page.
To add a meta description, include it in the <head> section of the page’s HTML markup.
However, most content management systems (CMS) such as WordPress allow you to add and edit meta descriptions by typing them in a designated field.
Why are meta descriptions important?
Meta descriptions are important for SEO, however, not as much as they once were.
They’re used to generate ‘snippets’ which tell users about your webpage.
These will help you stand apart from your competitors and increase your click-through rate (CTR).
Do I need to write a meta description for every page?
Writing a meta description for all of your pages is important.
How to write a meta description
Google cuts off descriptions at around 152 characters on desktop and around 105 characters on mobile.
Google recommends writing meta descriptions between 50 and 160 characters.
Every meta description needs to include the page’s main keywords especially the main search query you want the page to rank for.
Understanding search intent (what the user wants) is key to writing an effective meta description.
Include a call to action by telling users what they should do next.
We’d recommend including phrases such as learn more, shop online or try for free.
Make sure each meta description is unique for every page.
Generic and duplicate meta descriptions will drive down click-through and push your page further down the rankings.
You could use AI to help you write meta descriptions in bulk.
If you are writing a meta description for a product page, you should include information about the product features and benefits.
A good meta description for a product page should include the following:
1) The product name and model number if applicable
2) The product price and any current offers
3) The product availability and shipping options
Not including the above information could impact dwell time which we believe is a strong ranking factor (how long a user spends on a web page).
Conducting competitor analysis (searching for the keyword or phrase you want to rank for) is a great way to come up with inspiration for a meta description.
Conducting a website audit
A technical SEO audit – which we specialise in here at TRAFCK – will check your website for any missing or duplicate meta descriptions.
