The meta description is one of the most important – and most effective – ways of getting a search engine user to visit your website. It’s your elevator pitch and it remains an important tool for the digital marketer. And yet so many companies neglect to pay them any attention on their own websites.
Done well, they can increase traffic and improve your overall ranking.
Here we tell you what meta descriptions are, why they are vital to your business and what you can do to improve them.
What is a meta description?
Simply put, the meta description is a short piece of text – a 160 character snippet – which summarises the content of your web page.
What does a meta description do?
Your meta description is shown in search engine results pages, when the phrase you’ve searched for is contained within or closely related to the description.
So getting it right and optimised is understandably one of the most important aspects of on-page SEO.
Why do I need a meta description?
In short, a good meta description will encourage the visitor from Google to click your link!
So the more appropriate it is to their search, the more likely the user is to click through from the search engine.
Will having a meta description improve my ranking?
There is apparently no direct benefit to your ranking from having a meta description, according to search engines.
However, having a good click-through-rate (CTR) shows Google that you are a good website to drive its users to.
And so the more people that click your result, the higher up the rankings you will go.
What does a good meta description look like?
It should be between 135 to 160 characters.
The received wisdom is that it needs to be between 135- 160 characters – but there’s no hard and fast rule here (not least because Google actually measures using pixels rather than characters).
We’ve seen meta descriptions that exceed these but there is always a risk that Google will automatically truncate them, so generally we would suggest you aim for 135 characters.
It should match your content
A good meta description will match the content of the webpage. Don’t try to trick a visitor into clicking something that then turns out to be unrelated to what they are looking for. Google will penalise you for this. And your bounce rate (the percentage of visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page) will go up, which will also negatively affect your ranking.
It should contain a call to action
Rather than just listing the contents of a web page, your meta description is far more effective if it contains active language (‘think’; ‘call’; ‘learn’; ‘discover’ or ‘grab’), with a call to action that makes it clear what the visitor can expect to find when they click through – as well as making them more likely to do so.
Consider the following two examples:
‘We are a creative digital agency, providing integrated social media, search, creative and PR services.’
‘As a unique creative digital agency, learn how X could provide you with integrated social media, search, creative and PR services.’
The second example is undoubtedly more dynamic and enticing, making it very clear to the visitor who the company is and what services they offer.
It should include a benefit
It’s also more enticing for a visitor who, for example, has searched for a removal firm, to find, for example, a listing offering to ‘guarantee to take all the stress out of a house move with our professional team of experts’.
So make sure that you list the benefits to the visitor rather than just features of your offering.
Keep it relevant
Gone are the days off stuffing a meta description (or any other website content for that matter) full of key words and nothing else. It looks spammy and Google may well penalise you for it. It deters potential click-throughs as well as wasting a fantastic opportunity to improve your marketing.
What happens if I don’t edit my meta description?
If you don’t bother creating your own meta description for your web pages, Google will display one for you, usually using a snippet of text from the first paragraph of text on your page or a combination of the headers and the paragraphs, which sometimes doesn’t even make sense to a Google user. And that’s not necessarily great for you because it’s a missed opportunity to take control of what is communicated about your site.
So how can I edit my meta description?
The meta description is the short paragraph of text placed in the HTML of a webpage that describes its content and the good news is that you can edit yourself in the <head> section of your website’s HTML.
You should have complete control of your meta description in your content management system (CMS), especially if you’re using open source software such as WordPress.
Or you might prefer to use an SEO plug-in, such as Yoast, which easily allows you to add a meta description to the ‘meta description’ section – as well as letting you preview an example of how it will look in search engine results pages.
Or alternatively give us a shout and we will happily do it all for you!
Help with digital marketing
As a full service digital marketing agency, The Ideal Marketing would love to help you with any aspect of your marketing strategy, SEO, web design, brand development, social media, PR and email marketing.
Contact us for more information on 01858 374 170 or email info@idealmarketingcompany.com
