Meta Description
Meta Descriptions, which are HTML attributes that provide concise explanations of the contents of web pages, are commonly used by search engines on search result pages to display preview snippets for a given page.Code Sample
<head>
<meta name="description" content="This is an example of a meta description. This will often show up in search results.">
</head>
Optimal Length for Search Engines
Roughly 155 CharactersWhat is a Meta Description?
Meta description tags, while not important to search engine rankings, are extremely important in gaining user click-through from search engine result pages (SERPs). These short paragraphs are webmasters opportunity to advertise content to searchers and let them know exactly what the given page has with regard to what they’re looking for.
The meta description should employ the keywords intelligently, but also create a compelling description that a searcher will want to click. Direct relevance to the page and uniqueness between each page’s meta description is key. The description should optimally be between 150-160 characters.
<meta name"description" content="Here is a description of the applicable page"> SEO Best Practices
Write Compelling Ad Copy
The meta description tag serves the function of advertising copy, drawing readers to a website from the results and thus, is an extremely important part of search marketing. Crafting a readable, compelling description using important keywords can draw a much higher click-through rate of searchers to the given web page. To maximize click-through rates on search engine result pages, it's important to note that Google and other search engines bold keywords in the description when they match search queries.
Recommended Length
Meta descriptions can be any length but search engines generally truncate snippets longer than 160 characters, For this reason it is best to keep meta descriptions between 150-160 characters.Avoid Duplicate Meta description Tags
As with title tags, it is important that meta descriptions on each page be unique. One way to combat duplicate meta descriptions is to create a dynamic and programmatic way to make unique meta descriptions for automated pages.
Not a Google Ranking Factor
Google announced in September of 2009 that neither meta descriptions nor meta keywords factor into Google's ranking algorithms for web search. Google uses meta descriptions to return results when searchers use advanced search operators to match meta tag content, as well as to pull preview snippets on search result pages, but it's important to note that meta descriptions do not to influence Google's ranking algorithms for normal web search.Quotes Cut Off Descriptions
Any time quotes are used in a meta description, Google cuts off the description. To prevent meta descriptions from being cut off, it's best to remove all non-alpha/numeric characters from meta descriptions. If the quotes are important to include they can be changed to single quotes rather than double quotes to prevent truncation.Sometimes it is Okay to Not Write Meta Descriptions
Although conventional logic would hold that it's universally wiser to write a good meta description, rather than let the engines scrape a given web page, this isn't always the case. Use the general rule that if the page is targeting 1-3 heavily-searched terms/phrases, go with a meta description that hits those users performing that search. However, if the page is targeting longer tail traffic (3+ keywords), for example with hundreds of articles or blog entries or even a huge product catalog, it can sometimes be wiser to let the engines themselves extract the relevant text. The reason is simple - when engines pull, they always display the keywords (and surrounding phrases) that the user searched for. If a webmaster forces a meta description, they can detract from the relevance the engines make naturally. In some cases, they'll overrule the meta description anyway, but it's not always wise to rely on that.When you're writing your meta description, keep in mind the following tips:
- Do accurately describe the resulting page. You're trying to get people to click through to your page. The description won't impact your search ranking.
- Do include tagged facts about the page like the author, date written, or other information. This gives visitors very relevant information about the page that might not otherwise be displayed.
- Do write high quality descriptions. Just because the content isn't displayed on your Web page doesn't mean that people won't see it.
- Don't repeat information that is in the page title. Since it's already in the title, it adds no value.
- Don't include your site name or URL. This is in the URL of your site, and again adds no value.
- Don't use excessive punctuation. Stick with periods and commas and nothing else.
- Don't repeat descriptions over multiple pages or use programmatically generated descriptions.
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