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Think meta descriptions are a thing of the past? Not a chance! If you keep an eye on SEO, you’ll have seen their perceived importance waning. Sure, Google might rewrite the description on your behalf – over 70% of the time, in fact – but that’s no excuse not to take full advantage of those 160 characters.
After all, they’re still an opportunity to include your keyword for relevance. A solid meta description is as much for the reader as the search engine, demonstrating what they can expect when landing on your site. And don’t forget, if Google rewrites 70% of them, you still have complete control over the remaining 30%.
In short, they matter, and they’re an opportunity. It might not take long to type 160 characters, as any avid tweeter will know. Still, it’s worth an extra couple of minutes to turn any meta description from a formality to a critical component of your content.
So, let’s get into it. Here’s how to write meta descriptions for SEO the right way.
Consider It a Call to Action
Your meta description won’t close a sale or boost your ad revenues. However, it can still encourage anyone that reads it to take action. Specifically, when it does appear in searches, you have the chance to stop people in their tracks by issuing a direct order!
You want people to visit your page – that’s the point of SEO, after all. Don’t beat around the bush. A ‘click here’ or ‘read more’ can be all it takes to transfer them from Google or Bing to your site.
Write for People
SEO has always involved a delicate balance between writing for search spiders and focusing on the target audience. If search engines are no longer all that interested in meta descriptions, great! That means you can ignore them and go straight for the audience.
If you’ve created great content, you have an idea of your brand message, the ideal customer, and what you want that content to achieve. Start as you mean to go on, preparing searchers for what they’ll find on your site before they even click.
Don’t Forget Your Primary Keyword
Meta descriptions may not be the rankings powerhouse they once were, but they still consist of text on your page. Search bots will read them, even if they don’t act on them. That makes them prime real estate for telling the search giants what the page is all about.
Put it this way. Google doesn’t just rewrite descriptions. It rewrites page titles too. If you’re conscious of your SEO, would you forget to put your main keyword in the title? Of course not. Don’t make the mistake of neglecting a valuable signal towards search intent.
Be Specific Where Possible
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking the meta description is a chore or a box to check when you’re eager to hit publish. Think of it as the blurb on a book cover. You don’t necessarily want to sell anything in the description itself, but you do want to make an excellent first impression on the reader.
If it’s a product page, discuss the best features.
If it’s a blog post answering a question, give part of the answer away. But why would someone click the result if you’ve already responded to the question? Because you’ve proven you know what you’re talking about but made it clear that there’s more to learn about the subject.
And where better to find out more information than through someone confident enough to share what they know right from the outset?
You’d be amazed how much trust you can build in such a short space. You have just a matter of seconds to make a first impression, and building trust is every bit as essential as building a brand.
Don’t Be Afraid to Edit
Business is all about doing things better than the competition, no matter how small. If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t put much stock in the importance of meta descriptions, you’re not alone. There’s every chance your rivals don’t pay much attention either.
So, with a refreshed focus on SEO, you can gain an immediate edge. Get out of the mindset that writing 160 characters shouldn’t take five minutes. Sure, the first draft might take a matter of seconds, but always adopt a critical eye. Could it be better? Is it on brand? Does it meet the objectives outlined above?
You only have to publish it once, so give it the attention it deserves!
How to Write Meta Descriptions for SEO Quickly and Accurately
So, there are the guidelines for putting together an SEO meta description. Who knew that such a short, seemingly inconsequential piece of content could be so powerful?
Now you know the what and the why; there’s also the how. Here are a few quickfire SEO tips for quick yet effective meta tag creation.
Use a Plugin for Guidance
You’ll know how long a meta description should look with experience, even if you view it in a document. However, if you use a plugin like Rank Math or Yoast, you’ll find a visual indicator of whether you’ve hit the limit. Crucially, it covers not just characters but pixels too, so you can be confident of the whole tag showing up in the space provided.
Try to Avoid Automation
Meta description generators are nothing new, and the rapid advancement of AI writers can be tempting. However, auto-generated descriptions can be cumbersome and lack personality. All the machine learning in the world can’t replicate what you and your team know about the brand and the audience, so don’t let it go to waste.
Consider Variables
If you’re frontloading the work, which is an excellent bit of SEO advice, you can automate updates and freshness. If your chosen description includes a year, code it rather than writing it, so it pulls in the current year. If you’ve got a thousand similar pages and not much time, dynamically pull in information from the page, like product names and prices.
Make Your Marketing Shine With Our SEO Advice
That’s how to write meta descriptions for SEO and why you’d want to. Of course, while they’re still a relevant part of any SEO guide, they’re one of the hundreds of potential tasks applicable to every page on your site.
Fortunately, we’ve got you covered, so be sure to check out our other articles on everything from boosting search rankings to dominating social media and much more besides, right here on the blog.
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