How to create awesome meta descriptions

Meta description has always been an essential optimization. Although they are not helpful for ranking, they do help other goals, such as increasing click-through rates by enticing people to click on your listings instead of other listings that may be less interesting.

Meta descriptions are considered an indirect signal because they do not directly affect search rankings.

But does this mean you should ignore them in your SEO work? Absolutely not!

Here, you will learn how to create great meta descriptions to help search engines understand the content of your page and inspire searchers to click and visit your website.

What is a meta description?

The meta description is an HTML tag that provides a description of the page content for search engines and searchers. It is displayed on the search engine results page (SERP) below the page title.

Meta description vs. SERP snippet

Some people mistakenly use the terms “meta description” and “search snippet” interchangeably.

But meta description and search fragment are two different things.

Meta descriptions are HTML tags that you control. You can create and optimize your own meta description.

The search snippet is the description that Google displays for your web page. It may be a meta description you created, or it may be something completely different. Google controls this.

Why doesn’t Google use your meta description? Depending on the search query, Google may generate a completely different description for your web page from the meta description you created.

This is nothing new. Google automated this process many years ago.

According to a recent in-depth learn Jost performance:

• Google rewrote many search snippets By itself Help match the searcher’s query More precisely.
• In two-thirds of the cases they checked, Google used Sentence from First paragraph Create search snippets. Of course, this does not mean that Google will do the same thing to your website, but there are signs that article introduction should at least consider whether it will become a good substitute for meta description.

The distinction between meta descriptions and search snippets is important, especially when Google makes announcements-such as when Google Extend the length of the search snippet (until Shorten the fragment About six months later).

Why is meta description important for SEO?

As many other ranking factors come into play, the influence of meta descriptions has diminished and is no longer used for rankings at all. Actually, Google confirmed in 2009 Although meta-information was used for ranking by search engines in the early days of Google, it has depreciated long ago.

So how are they used today?

Meta descriptions can help increase clicks, traffic, potential conversions, and revenue in the following ways:

• Improve website click-through rate in SERP: Over the years, there has been research supporting the view that a well-written and appropriately optimized meta description can increase your click-through rate. A report issued by Sistrix shows that when SERPs contain featured snippets, The number one clickthrough rate dropped by an average of 5.3%, For example.

  Author screenshot, December 2021

• Higher quality traffic: The higher your position in the SERP, the more likely you are to get clicks, resulting in higher quality traffic. Zero Limit Network revealed that 81.3% A search for resulted in a Google natural click on page 1. The results from 6 to 10 accounted for only 3.73% of the clicks.
• Potential conversion: Carefully compile a meta description closely related to the subject of the page, interested in the user, and targeting User intent Can significantly increase the conversion from search to your website.

What is the recommended or ideal meta description length?

For many years, keeping meta descriptions to around 160-165 characters (or 156-160 characters, depending on who you are talking to) has been considered a standard SEO best practice.

The reason behind this is that this optimization helps to avoid the truncation of the meta description in the SERP and therefore helps limit the bounce rate.

Do the test yourself. Find out exactly which method is right for your website.

7 yuan description writing skills and best practices

Research your competitors

No matter which industry you belong to, SERP research will help you understand what works for your competitors-this is the opponent you need to defeat.

Monitor related SERPs in the next few days, weeks, and months.

Evaluate exactly which meta descriptions appear in the top position you want to rank.

Effectively conduct SERP research:

Step 1: Research the SERP of the target keyword

Easier said than done, I know. Going through each search result manually and determining what your competitor’s kryptonite is can be time-consuming.

The reason why we pay attention to the game is because usually the game will implement current effective technology.

Step 2: Research your competitors’ SERPs and what they are doing

Here, you can view your competitors and understand exactly what they are doing for your brand.

Step 3: Put them in a spreadsheet and track them

use SEO Quake Google Chrome extension, You can export Google SERPs to Excel spreadsheets very quickly and efficiently. This will allow you to keep track of your competitors and track them easily and efficiently on a monthly basis without having to pay huge monthly fees.

Draw a customer journey map

Determine the best buying journey for your target audience and what happens at each stage of the marketing funnel.

The marketing funnel may vary depending on your target market, so sharing an exact funnel here is futile.

Locate and customize your meta description based on your findings.

Use your brand’s unique tone and style

Every brand should have a unique tone, consistent with its brand identity; this is how the brand is presented to users online.

Each meta description should be uniquely produced and customized to suit how this tone magnifies itself in the brand ecosystem.

For corporate law websites, you wouldn’t use the same tone as daycare websites, would you?

So, why use the exact same tone from page to page?

The main benefit of intonation is that it can achieve different people For certain keywords.

By locating roles based on user intent and combining keywords with this research, you can attract target audiences with a level of complexity and optimization that truly resonates.

Include keywords that your audience actually searched

Google continues to insist that they do not use keywords in meta descriptions for ranking. But when you do SERP research, what do you see? The keywords highlighted in the meta description.

This is not decisive evidence that Google uses it, but it can draw your readers to the most relevant results to satisfy their queries.

If your meta description satisfies their intent better than any other result that appears, you will win a click.

Take advantage of trending social headlines

As a connoisseur of social media, when you want to determine exactly what is trending and what is not acceptable to your audience, you are most likely to continue to develop in your industry.

Focusing on influencer accounts and industry companies should already be part of your strategy.

Going a step further, evaluate which topics are currently popular in your space, and see which meta descriptions appear in the highest ranked results.

Trending topics on Google Trends, BuzzSumo, and Twitter are all good places to check and view trends related to your industry.

Target specific search intent

General meta descriptions and empty phrases (such as “best widget” and other sales terms) may turn off potential customers.

The important thing is to inspire people’s confidence that your results will satisfy their user’s query intent.

You want to talk about what your readers really want, rather than trying to convince them to enter your own sales channels.

Refresh the meta description of the old content

Refreshing the stale content on the website can bring good news to the website and is a good way to gain new appeal for the old page.

In addition, by refreshing the meta description, you can get more attention from social media. If you perform a system refresh on all meta descriptions, you can re-share and get more visibility from old posts.

Examples of great meta descriptions

So what does a good meta description look like?

Here are some examples:

“In personal injury cases, pain and suffering are very real to victims. In this latest blog post, learn more about how to reduce discomfort from our personal injury lawyers.”

“By clearly considering your needs, it is possible to find a computer that can help you accomplish all the things you currently like and more. Our technicians explain.”

“What are you looking for in widgets? Our widget technicians can help you find the widgets that best suit your needs. These are the things you should pay attention to in widgets.”

Not every meta description type is suitable for every industry. This is where you test, evaluate the results, and make changes based on those results.

Customize meta descriptions based on the website and pages designed specifically for users.And always keep User intent Keep in mind when integrating the above optimizations.

Optimizing meta description needs to strike a balance

All of this must be done while observing character restrictions, proper branding and tone, and targeted optimization for specific pages.

This is a delicate balance that must be maintained while also intertwining common SEO elements.

If you only learned one thing from this chapter, I hope it is this: Always write meta descriptions from the perspective of improving the user experience and providing useful information.

This is what meta description is best at.

They won’t help you rank higher in search, but they can help you win more clicks from search by showing users the value your page must provide.

Image Source

Featured image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Magazine
All screenshots taken by the author