What Is a Meta Description How to Do It Best Way

Meta description. It seems like something from another dimension. But actually, it’s super simple. A meta description is that the approximately 160 character summary that appears below your URL on an enquiry engine or anywhere that your website is shared. It’s a brief depiction of what appears on your website so searchers know what to expect once they click through to your site.

Once you’ve created your website, subsequent necessary course of action is to form sure that folks can find it. one among the only and most essential ways to form this happen is with meta descriptions. This practice is vital for all kinds of business, whether you’ve got a web store, blog or photography website.

This article will assist you dive into exactly the way to write meta descriptions, optimize their length and include them in your HTML. it’ll also cover how they will assist you get more potential users clicking through to your site and show you some samples of other meta descriptions out there.

What is a meta description?

As you now know, meta descriptions are those short descriptions of internet sites that you simply see under Google results or social shares. But how do they get there? Meta tags, or SEO title tags and descriptions, are essentially the text that you simply include in your site code letting search engines skills you would like to seem in search results.

However, like everything in life, it isn’t that straightforward . Google can plan to either take the meta descriptions that you simply have written, or to ignore them and choose what to display in their results supported the content of your page.

Do not let this discourage you though. it’s still well worthwhile to incorporate a meta title and outline in your code because there’s an honest chance Google will use it. And by including it, you enable yourself to be on top of things of the primary content many users see regarding your page.

How to add meta descriptions

In order to urge your meta descriptions showing, you’ll got to embed them into the backend of your website. If you’ve got built your website from scratch yourself, you’ll easily add them to your HTML. To do so, add a meta tag to your head section as follows:

<head>

<meta name=“description” content=“insert your meta description here”/>

</head>

If you’ve built your website with an internet site builder like “Website BUILD and DESIGN”, adding meta descriptions is even simpler. Just follow these steps to feature or change your meta description:

Enter the editor of the specified website .
Click Menus & Pages on the left-hand side.
Click the Show More icon next to the relevant page.
Click SEO (Google).
Enter the specified description under “What’s the page about? Add an outline .”
Click Publish at the highest right corner of your editor.

Optimal meta description length

Now that you simply skills to incorporate meta descriptions in your sites , it’s essential to think about the length of your meta descriptions. Technically speaking, there’s no character limit and you’ll include the maximum amount detail as you’d like.

However, search engines don’t have space to incorporate all of your text. they’re trying to supply many potential results to the user’s query then there’s limited space on any given results page. Therefore, Google usually truncates descriptions at around 160 characters.

That being said, you would like to form bound to utilize the space that’s being given to you and to properly describe your website . Ideally aim to possess your descriptions somewhere between 100-160 characters long .

Why do meta descriptions matter?

While adding meta tags is usually thought of as an SEO related task, they don’t seem to possess any direct impact on program rankings. However, they are doing still have a big , indirect SEO impact, which is why they’re considered among the simplest SEO tips to spice up your website.

By crafting great meta description copy, you’ll enhance the click-through rate on your site’s program result. The more people that prefer to click on your site over other sites on the result page, the higher your chances of ranking higher. Google notices that your result’s matching what users are checking out and thus bumps your result up.

The other advantage of meta descriptions is that they’re essentially free, organic ad copy. Unlike advertising on Google, meta descriptions provide you with how to market your website for free of charge . this is often an area where you’ll take up real-estate on Google and may potentially have some control over how your website is represented. it’s also the primary thing that thousands of searchers will see about your site. Because Google is such a huge platform, the potential for bringing in extra visitors is large . Needless to mention , it’s well worthwhile to believe what you would like to incorporate in your meta descriptions.

How to write meta descriptions effectively

Just as with writing ad copy, when writing meta descriptions you ought to believe the way to accurately portray your product or service, while also enticing searchers to click on your site. However, you’ve got to try to to this cautiously. Searchers and Google alike expect to ascertain an authentic portrayal of your website . confirm that you simply are being honest and describing the particular content of your website. this may help users know what they’re close to receive and reduce the quantity of users who quickly click back to the search results, instead of dwelling on your page.

In order to entice your readers without being overly pushy, consider a few of key factors. Firstly, do some marketing research to pinpoint your unique value over your competition. Explaining clearly what you’ve got to supply that others don’t is truthful and provides searchers a reason to settle on you. Also, consider adding a word (but nothing too long) about low prices if relevant. A reader always wants to understand that they’re going to receive a good deal.

Another important aspect to think about is keyword insertion. If you haven’t done so already, conduct some keyword research for your site. This process will assist you identify the most words or phrases that folks use when checking out an internet site like yours. There are many keyword research tools to assist you along the way.

You’ll want to incorporate your keyword in your meta description for a few of reasons:

Using your top keyword in your meta description is a simple thanks to make sure that you’re accurately describing the content of your page.

Search engines often highlight the search term inside the results it shows. By using the right keywords, your result’s more likely to incorporate those highlighted search terms, and thus more likely to face out.

Meta description examples

Nothing can truly explain what makes for a successful meta description quite like watching some examples. Here are a couple of meta description examples along side notes about what makes them effective and the way they will potentially improve.

01. PetSmart

PetSmart does an excellent job of explaining their offering clearly, helping the searcher know what to expect once they click through. the outline is additionally written within the person , which helps make them seem more objective. However, the solution is truncated, not letting the searcher see all of the knowledge they want to supply .

02. Compare the Market

Compare the Market clearly presents their value in their meta description. A searcher can understand what they’re close to encounter with their site and may see why their service could be beneficial over others. But like within the example above, the solution is truncated, detracting from the general value of the outline . it’s also written in person which provides a more subjective feel to the outline .

03. Amazon

Amazon does an excellent job at describing their product categories. This assures the user that they’re going to find what they’re trying to find if they click through. They also express their “low prices” enticing a searcher to settle on them over one among their competitors. On the opposite hand, the outline would likely read more smoothly if it were a touch less repetitive.

04. “Website BUILD and DESIGN”

This meta description for a “Website BUILD and DESIGN” blog post does an excellent job of incorporating keywords. It also dives right into the solution , letting searchers know that this page will provide a response to their question. However, like a number of the descriptions above, the solution is truncated, leaving searchers hoping for more.

05. Perfect Daily Grind

Perfect Daily Grind clearly expresses the relevant question within the title then begins to supply a solution within the description. this is often an excellent tactic for showing what content your page truly provides. However, the solution that’s provided during this description isn’t something that clearly explains the way to brew coffee. It could potentially be enhanced by answering the question more directly.

By applying these pros and cons to your meta description writing process, you’ll be writing stellar descriptions for all of your sites in no time.