The title of this blog post might be misleading because meta descriptions doesn’t impact SEO (search engine optimisation) directly, but the message in these tags can compliment your user experience. Meta description tags are used underneath your page title in Google’s search results, so they have to stand out. They should be relevant and unique for every page on your website.
On the search engine result pages the meta title is shown as the title of the result and the meta description directly beneath the title. When no meta description is specified, Google will usually take a small piece of text from the page to display. Please note that Google doesn’t always show the meta title and meta description you specify.
The meta description should be well thought out because it will usually determine if a user is going to click on the result. It should be short and not longer than 157 characters. When creating meta tags, think of creating powerful tweets for every page that will serve as the headline of the content. Find some tips below to optimise the meta descriptions on your website.
Meta description optimisation
Competitor meta descriptions: Before you start optimising your meta descriptions, look at your competitors websites. What meta descriptions are they using? How can you optimise yours to be better?
Relevant: Every page on your website should have it’s own meta description that describes the content of the page. They should be to the point and help search engine visitors to click on your results.
Content: With the content of your meta descriptions you want people to click through to your website pages. Create powerful content pieces for this with a strong call to action to convince people.
Keywords: You don’t have to include keywords in your meta descriptions as they don’t affect SEO directly, but it does affect user experience. When a user typed in a certain keyword, they are looking for that keyword in the results so if you have that in your content, they might click on it.
