On the heels of last week’s article on Title Tag Optimization for SEO, I’d like to cover another important aspect to optimizing websites to place well in the SERPs – Meta Descriptions.
A Quick Background on Meta Tags
Meta tags in general have been a very controversial topic over the years in the SEO industry, and rightly so. In the early days of SEO, search engine optimizers and many webmasters used the Meta Keywords tag as a platform to stuff as many target keywords into a page as possible – whether they were relevant or not. Finding ways to game the system is a typical practice in the SEO industry, and this strategy actually worked for quite a while.
The problem is that people were abusing the use of this tag and many pages that shouldn’t have been ranking well were taking top positions for keywords they had no business showing up for. The quality of search results suffered, and search engines soon laid the smack down on these sites, knocking them from top positions in favor of websites that were of a higher quality.
And so – like the dinosaurs – the use of Meta Keywords as an effective SEO strategy has died out. However, it is another Meta tag that lives on and is (if used in conjunction with other SEO best practices) a very effective way to achieve better search engine rankings.
It is the Meta Description tag.
What is a Meta Description?
The Meta Description tag is typically a sentence or two of content which describes the content of a particular webpage. Search engines may consider or display this tag at their discretion. Relevant meta description tags often appear in search results as part of the page description below the page title.
Where Can You Find It?
Your Meta Description can be found between your webpage’s <head></head> section. Here’s how a Meta Description typically looks for in a site’s source code:
As stated above, your webpage’s Meta Description may also show up in the search results:
Okay, now we know what and where you Meta Description is. Let’s discuss some strategies on how to compose it effectively for SEO.
1. Homepage/Top-Level Pages vs. Deep-Interior Pages (Length)
The length of your Meta Descriptions is a very important matter. If you’re familiar with search results, you’ll notice that search engines typically only display so much of your webpage’s SERP description before it cuts them off with an ellipsis (…).
In addition, the length of the description being displayed can vary depending on the search query and the pages that are being served up.
Typically, for more general search queries (i.e. “car“), your site’s top-level pages will be the ones that show up in the SERPs. However, for search queries that are of the long-tailed variety (i.e. “2011 chrysler 200 red sedan columbus“)
Based on my research and experience, here are the average character space lengths that show up before the cutoff for search queries of the more general variety – typically bringing up top-level pages:
- Google: As few as 136 characters, as many as 156 characters in length.
- Bing: As few as 135 characters, as many as 169 characters in length.
The average character space lengths that show up before the cutoff for search queries of the more long-tailed variety – typically bringing up your site’s deep-interior pages:
- Google: As many as 299 characters in length.
- Bing: Did not show a noticeable expansion of SERP descriptions for long-tailed searches.
One thing that should be remembered with these expanded SERP results is that it is not necessarily just pulling the Meta Description, it is usually pulling together text from different sections on the page. Therefore, it may be mashing together as many as 3 different sources of information into the SERP description.
Why does that matter to you? You should stay conservative with the lengths of your Meta Descriptions on deep-interior pages. I’d say 175-225 characters spaces is good.
The expanded SERP descriptions are definitely not a license to blow out all deep-interior Meta Descriptions to 299 characters or beyond, but merely a reference point to show you that they could potentially be expanded a bit from how you write your top-level descriptions.
Note: The character space thresholds before cutoff are just what I’ve seen after thoroughly examining the SERP results. They may be subject to change as the search engines change how they display results.
The moral of the story is that you need to maximize the space available to you in the Meta Description tag – especially for top-level pages. Try to write complete thoughts and finish them around the cutoff points. If the description goes beyond, search engines will find an appropriate point to cut it off and what comes after that point probably won’t matter as much for your rankings.
2. Keyword Usage
Just as with title tags, this one should be a no-brainer. Use your target keywords in your Meta Descriptions. For example, if your website’s main purpose is to help you sell “Used Cars,” then you’re going to want to mention that in your Meta Description.
Before you do that, I recommend conducting extensive keyword research to determine which keywords are best for your site’s Meta Descriptions.
3. Keyword Relevance & On-Page Correlation
Search engines are in the business of displaying the most relevant results for any given search query. Relevancy is their main goal! This means that you’re going to have to ensure that the keywords you’re targeting in your site’s Meta Descriptions are highly relevant to the content on the page.
For example, let’s say you have an internal page on your site about “2011 Chrysler 200.” Which of the following Meta Descriptions would you consider to be more relevant?
or
If you’re thinking like a search engine, then you’d probably guess that the second description is more relevant to the term “2011 Chrysler 200.” If all other things are equal, then you’d probably be right!
In addition, having Meta Descriptions that are highly correlated with on-page content is good for both usability and click-through rates. If a user is searching specifically for a 2011 Chrysler 200, then they’ll be more likely to click on a result with an enticing and relevant SERP description like in the 2nd example above.
If a website visitor land on a page that is about something different than what they were searching for, that could be a turn off which will lead to more bounces and poor user engagement/conversion.
4. Keyword Placement & Prioritization
Keywords at the beginning of a Meta Description tend to have more weight and ranking power than those at the end – or those that are past the cut-off point. Therefore, you should place your most important keywords towards the beginning of each Meta Description.
For example, if on your homepage you wish to target the keyword “new cars” as your most important target keyword and “used cars” as your 2nd most important keyword, then it might make sense to write a Meta Description similar to this:
If you’re really targeting the keyword “new cars” more so than anything else, then it would make less sense to write a description like this rather than the one above:
Just remember, the more important a keyword is, the closer it should be to the front of your Meta Description. But that’s they easy part. Writing an effective Meta Description can be much less black-and-white if you’re trying to target more than just two keywords.
5. Repetition vs. Combination-Matching
While simply repeating keywords is probably easiest – it is not good for someone who might be reading the SERP description after performing a search query, and it is certainly not good for targeting multiple keywords in a non-spammy way.
There is no need to be repetitious in your keyword usage within the Meta Description tag. Mentioning the same keyword over and over again won’t help you rank any better. Instead, try to think of ways you can combine phrases and utilize a search engine’s natural ability to match phrases together so as to give you more room to target multiple relevant phrases in the Meta Description.
For example, if you’re trying to target both “new cars” and “used cars” in your Meta description, then you could write:
Another example, let’s say you want to rank for “car dealer columbus ohio”, “auto dealer dublin ohio,” “new cars columbus”, “new cars dublin”, “used cars columbus” and “used cars dublin.” In order to target all of those phrases in your Meta Description, you might write something like this:
A search engine can match all of the individual words together, allowing you to hit many keywords at once – all while saving the space you’d have used if you simply listed out the keywords in order. Finding opportunities to write sentences in ways that a search engine can match the keywords together can help you hit on many keywords all at once.
Note: Both examples were obviously shortened in order to make a point.
6. Keyword Proximity & Exact-Matches
As with title tags, here’s where it gets tricky. Utilizing keyword combinations and matching is a great way to hit on multiple keywords at once while saving space. But I will flat out tell you that nothing beats a good old exact-match phrase in your Meta Description in terms of relevance.
For example, if somebody is searching for “new car,” a Meta Description that actually used the phrase “new car” should win out versus one where the keywords “new” and “car” aren’t right next to each other – if all things are equal.
The issue is keyword proximity. Keyword strings that appear closer together are better than having to rely on a search engine’s ability to match them together. Consider the following sentence…
In a round-a-bout way, the above sentence could be considered somewhat relevant to the term “new car.” A search engine would loosely be able to distinguish this. But is it more relevant to the term “new car” than a sentence that says…
I’d say the second one is more relevant to the term “new car” than the first, and that is where you have to strike a balance. It really comes down to just how focused do you want to be in terms of keyword targeting.
If you have a need to target multiple keywords on a page, then combination-matching is the way to go. However, if you have a page that has more of a singular keyword focus, then using an exact-match keyword is better for relevancy.
7. Unique Meta Descriptions on Every Page
Each webpage on your site should have a Meta Description that is unique, different from other pages, and uniquely relevant to the content on that particular webpage.
Why does this matter? Google only displays a max of two results from one site in the SERPs. So having multiple pages with the same Meta Description may make it difficult for them to determine which one is more deserving of being ranked prominently. And thus, they may choose to rank none at all.
To go back to the reference I’ve used before about duplicate titles and meta tags, think of it like reading a book. If you’re skimming the table of contents and see that all the chapters have the same description, how will you be able to quickly jump to a highly-specific point in that book with any confidence in what that section is actually about? You won’t. You’ll just put it back down, and so will a search engine.
Duplicate Meta Descriptions can cause the appearance of duplicate content (even if on-page content is different and unique from page-to-page). This may cause some pages to get stuck under a search engine’s filters. Also, it tends to look like spamming, which is the opposite of what you want.
As I’ve said before, every webpage and every title has to be able to stand on its own two feet in terms of ranking in search engines. Its perfectly okay to have Meta Descriptions that are very similar and correlate with an overarching site theme, but having duplicates really hinders their individual ability to be highly relevant to the site’s on-page content, and thus for any search queries.
8. Write Readable & Compelling Copy
It is very important to remember that your site’s Meta Description tag serves the function of advertising copy. It’s main purpose is to draw readers to a website from the search results – making it very important to write it in such a way that it is highly readable (while still integrating target keywords) and compelling enough to draw a click.
Writing a highly-readable, compelling Meta Description that integrates important keywords can serve to draw a much higher click-through rate to a specific webpage.
Additional note: In order to maximize click-through rates on search engine result pages, you’ll need to remember that Google and other search engines bold keywords in the description when they match search queries. Using keywords that are relevant to search queries is a good way to stand out in the mess that is a SERP.
9. Geo-Targeting
If you service a specific geo-area, then you’re absolutely going to need to mention it in your Meta Description in order to show up for a local search query such as “Car Dealer Columbus Ohio.” If you’d like to target more than one city that you service, then it may be worth mentioning both. I try not to go beyond 4-5 depending on length of city name.
Remember, search engines are very literal – meaning if you want to show up for something it should be mentioned on your page. So if you want to show up for “car dealer dublin ohio,” it will need to be somewhere on your site – unless you have a nice local listing built out. It probably should still be on there either way.
I’d recommend something like:
Important note: Make sure that the use of a geo-term in the Meta Descripiton correlates with similar use within your site’s content or it won’t be as effective.
10. Use of Special Symbols
You should not be using any special symbols in your site’s Meta Descriptions. They aren’t helpful in terms of rankings and are simply a waste of space. I’d just stay away from them altogether when it comes to Meta Descriptions. Some special symbols include (©), (®), and (™).
Here is a full list of HTML Accent Entity codes that I refer to often.
Anyhow, hope this helps you write better Meta Descriptions. I’m sure I didn’t quite cover everything as there is much that goes into it, but I tried to be as comprehensive as I could. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for additions to the article!
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