Often overlooked, Meta Descriptions are the hidden gem of SEO!
Put simply they are the little bit of text underneath the page title in search results. Here are the search results from our home page, with the meta description indicated in red.
It is very important to get meta descriptions right, these are your opportunity to stand out from the crowd and say PICK ME. Why should a user click on your link above other? Let’s give them a reason!
Key points to get your Meta Descriptions right.
- First of all, know your limits! – A title can be up to 70 characters, and a description 140. Any more and what you say will be chopped off so make sure you say what you need to.
- FIRST IMPRESSION! – this is the very first thing that a user sees. There is no logo, no colours, no styling, no clever spacing, no bold, no capitals – nothing but text. What you say is vital!
- Tell the user exactly what the page contains – If they invest in a click let them please find what you have stated they will! If they are looking for oranges, and you say sell oranges but they look inside and find potatoes – they are frustrated, you annoy them, you have let them down!
- Entice the user to come into the site – sell it! You have something which is worthwhile – otherwise, why have a website at all? Tell the world why you’re worth a visit!
- Use the specific keywords you are trying to rank the page for – helps your site search rankings.
If you don’t add your own meta description the text will simply be the first 140 characters of your page. Does this put across what you want it to?
