5 steps to a great meta description

Successful Search Engine Optimisation involves a plethora of techniques, skills and knowledge plus a whole lot of hard work on top of it. Something that quite often gets missed, incorrectly used or just generally abused is that of the meta description; a basic element of SEO.

So, for those who don’t know the difference between toffee cheesecake and the meta description:

• Toffee cheesecake is (probably) the best desert known to the human race.
• The meta description is a small piece of code that sits within the ‘head’ section of your website that acts as an overview or summary of that particular page.

The meta description should be used as a short summary of the page it is on as well as a call to action to entice potential customers onto the page, encouraging them to take that step in buying your product or making an enquiry about the services you provide.

The reason your description should be an ‘enticement’ or call to action is because Google will use your description as a summary on the search results. So having a great, descriptive and appealing description could make the difference between a potential customer clicking through to your website, or one of your competitors.

With this in mind, here are 5 steps to creating a great meta description:

Step 1

List your targeted keyword of theme keyword for the page. Write down or think about all the variances of that keyword and how people might find your page through searching online.

Step 2

Take a look at what your competitors are writing – do a few searches and find out what others have put in their descriptions. Is there any intelligence you can gather and put to good use on your description?

Step 3

Now write a short paragraph about the page, describing the content and using your keywords. Stay focused on description but remember not to make it generic. If the page is about pink fluffy socks, don’t write ‘Socks of all sizes and colours available’. Write something like ‘Pink fluffy socks that keep your toes warm and cosy, available in different sizes and at great prices from Socks Ltd’ – consider the type of person you’re trying to attract to the page.

Step 4

Give it some sizzle! Like a great advert, you want people to see your description and think ‘Yes! That’s what I I’m looking for!’ and click through to your website. Engage the user and entice the user, but remember to stay descriptive.

Step 5

Finally, take what you have written and re-write it. Yes, re-write it!

Make sure you keep it to 155 characters including spaces. This way, the whole of your description will show up in all the Search Engines as a complete description. Anything over 155 characters and Google will cut it short, showing a ‘…’ at the end, chopping your beautifully crafted meta description short – which could cost you valuable visitors.

Now you have a meta description that is going to knock your competition off the screen and stand out from the crowd!