Meta Description Best Practices – A 6 Step Guide

Your meta descriptions act as a summary of the content for each of your individual web pages. Meta descriptions are an effective tool for keyword promotion and help the search engine spiders to document what the website is about. Years ago, your meta data was extremely important for ensuring high search listings but over the years the relevance here has been massively reduced. Instead, meta descriptions are now important for ensuring high click through rates as the search engine results pages (SERPs) display this text as part of your listing.

Through the Magnolia Soft Admin you can manipulate quite a lot of your meta descriptions using the following form found in Settings > Search Engine Optimisation:

Therefore, it’s important that you consider the following best practices for writing effective meta descriptions:

1. Keep your Meta Descriptions short

Google currently displays up to 160 characters, Yahoo! displays up to 165, and MSN will display over 200. Any descriptions over these various limits will be cut-off by the search engines and replaced with “…”.

2. Incorporate a call-to-action

Your Meta Description can often benefit from a strong call-to-action along with the benefits of your product or service. A call-to-action encourages users to click on your link and ensures they understand exactly what you expect them to do when they reach your landing page. Some call-to-action phrases are Buy, Sell, Order, Browse, Sign up and Get a Quote.

3. Incorporate your primary keywords

The search engines will put keyword text in bold if the meta description contains instances of the searched for keyword. Make sure that your meta descriptions incorporate your target keywords. This can have a significant impact on click through rates (CTRs).

4. Write Unique Meta Descriptions

Just like your title tags, make sure that each meta description is unique and accurately reflects the page content. The search engines analyze each page of your site, so optimise each page according to its content.

5. Be informative and honest

Accurately describe your page content and be as honest as you can be. Don’t try to write a 160-character advertisement or overly ‘sex-up’ your content. And remember you don’t just want traffic per se, you want focussed targeted traffic with a high likelihood of buying.

6. Be careful with repetition

As with most aspects of your website, the search engines are keen to filter out spammy websites that abuse the use of keywords to try and gain higher rankings. Too much repetition will now hurt you rather than help you. To manage this risk, never insert the same word twice in a row in this tag, even if you're using different variations. It is advisable to use the same word in different phrases of your meta description but never use that word more than three or four times within the tag, even if you're using different variations of it.