How Can I Improve My Meta Descriptions?
If, upon checking your meta descriptions with our checker tool, you’ve discovered there are improvements you need to make, there are, fortunately, some meta description practices that we can recommend to you. This includes focusing on getting the right length, including the right content, language, and keywords, and making it completely unique, no matter how many you have to write.
What Do You Need To Include?
You must include a brief description of the page you are sending visitors to. This needs to be extremely concise but also highly informative so that you can draw in search users rather than them going to your competition. It can be useful to include keywords – but note that these will be bolded by Google to stand out, meaning they take up more character space.
Why You Should Look At A Meta Description Example?
Like writing anything, looking at examples can give you more insight into what does well and gives you an idea of what to write yourself. You can look these examples up online or uncover what your competitors have written to provide you with an example of what you need to include and how you can make yours stand out.
Tips for Your Meta Descriptions
Include A Call To Action
You need to convince users to click on your website, and one way you can do this is by including a call to action and using active language rather than passive. Doing this can encourage the users to take the action you want beyond just clicking on your link. They may end up actually fulfilling your desire to sign up or buy something.
Keep It Below 155 Characters But Above 120
Although Google doesn’t have a specific limit on how long your meta descriptions can be, we recommend not exceeding 155 characters to avoid yours from being cut down – a half-completed sentence doesn’t look as professional or as inspiring for users to click on. On the other end of the scale, writing something too short won’t necessarily help you either, as it may not convince users your resource has what they need, even if it does. Anything above 120 characters but below 155 characters is the recommended practice.
Have A Focus Keyword
When you include a keyword in a meta description, Google will bold this, and although it does take up more character space, it could be just what you need to draw in more attention. If you are looking for ways to stand out in comparison to your competition, this is how you do it.
Make It Unique
Every meta description you write must be relevant to the page in question, but when you are writing them for very similar pages, it is all too easy to fall into the trap of recreating the same meta with just a few tweaks or even using the same one for each page. You must make sure each meta description is unique so as not to ruin the user experience. Still write about any USPs, discounts, or special offers, but ensure the text you are writing is completely fresh to anything previously written.