The 155-160 character snippet used to summarize the content of a website is an important SEO tool. Meta tags or Meta descriptions as they are known, serve as advertisement copies. They draw readers to websites listed on the SERP, and thus make for a very important part of search engine marketing.
This crafting compelling, readable and relevant Meta descriptions are important to increase the click-through rate (CTR) of your website. Here is a list of things that goes into creating SEO friendly Meta descriptions.
Creating Meta Descriptions for People Not For Rankings
Your Meta descriptions need to be an accurate and attractive summary of what your content is all about. This means people need to find it less lengthy and easily understandable. The right length of Meta descriptions lies between 155 to 160 characters; although Google changes the rules every now and then. But, it’s good to have the most important information within the first 155 characters.
Write the descriptions in an active voice. Include call-to-actions (CTAs), such as “download here”, “find out more” or “get it now”.
Include the Focus Keywords
Your top keyword phrase should be included in your Meta descriptions. Although Google says that it really doesn’t consider these paragraphs in search engine rankings, keywords will definitely help searchers to reach your website. Whenever someone searches for a particular keyword on the engine, the matching keywords in your descriptions will get bolded.
Use an Online Checker to Avoid Duplicate Paragraphs
It’s important that Meta descriptions of your page be unique to maintain attractiveness of your information. Too many websites online have similar or identical descriptions, and this hampers user experience online. To take care of this problem you can use a plagiarism checker to search extensively through these paragraphs online. It will also help you find out if your descriptions have been copied by someone else, which allows you to promptly change yours.
Descriptions Need to Match the Content
Google has ways to find instances where the website content doesn’t match its description. Your site will get penalized. Apart from that, misleading Meta descriptions really serves no purpose, and just increases the bounce rates on your website.
Test Your Meta Descriptions
Experiment with different lengths, keyword positioning and sentence phrasings to see which ones can increase your click-through-rates (CTRs). The phrases you use can make or break your search engine results.
Remove Non Alpha-Numeric Characters from Descriptions
When quotation marks are included in the HTML of a Meta description, Google omits the description at the quotation mark in its SERP page. Use HTML entity if quotes are important. Double quotes could lead to truncation.
Remember that social media channels use your page’s Meta description or the first sentence of the posts shared with the description. If these sentences don’t sum up your content well, people will fail to see the point of it and share less. Not everyone sharing your page can edit the description on social platforms. So, you need to ensure that you write unique and powerful Meta descriptions for these sites to encourage clicks and sharing. Online paragraph checkers can help avoid duplicity.
