A meta description is a snippet of approximately 155 characters – a tag in HTML – which summarizes a page’s content. Webmasters use meta descriptions on their websites to give search engines like Google more information about the web page’s content. Officially described as “meta name=”description”” in website coding, its primary purpose is to drive user click-through from Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Its secondary purpose is to describe to search engines what your page is about.
SEO guru Neil Patel explains that having a relevant, compelling meta description can often be the difference between someone clicking on your page or your competitors. This is because the meta description displays in the search results underneath the page title and URL. While it does not directly impact search engine rankings, it can significantly influence click-through rates.
Moz, an SEO software company, highlights that the meta description could be any length, but search snippets are cut off and may not fully display after 155-160 characters. To ensure the entirety of the description shows up in search results, it’s generally advised to keep meta descriptions short and to-the-point.
Let’s look at an example. If you Google “What is a meta description?” – Moz’s webpage pops up near the top. The meta description under the title reads: “Meta descriptions are HTML attributes that provide concise summaries of web pages. They are between one sentence…” As can be seen, Moz uses a brief, clear, and enticing description to motivate users to click on their webpage to find out more.
By optimizing meta descriptions, businesses can enhance their online visibility, increase website traffic, and enhance web usability. Google’s Search Console Help Center also suggests including clearly tagged facts in the descriptions, as it will help Google’s algorithms better understand your pages, and it’ll help your page appear in Google’s rich results, which can help improve click-through rates significantly.
The meta descriptions are not visible on the web page itself. They can only be seen in the page’s HTML code and in Google’s search results. Hence, it’s crucial to make the description compelling and reflect the keywords users might be searching for when trying to find the information given on your web page. The more relevant your description, the more likely it is that users will choose to click on your webpage when it shows in their search results.
References:
1. Neil Patel, “How to Write a Meta Description that Gets Click-Throughs”, 2020.
2. Moz.com, “Meta Description”, 2021.
3. Google Search Central Help, “Create Good Titles and Snippets in Search Results”, n.d.
