What is a meta description?
The meta description is an HTML tag you can set for a post or page of your website. In it, you can use roughly 155 characters to describe what your page is about. If you’re lucky, Google will show it beneath your page’s title in the search results. It allows you to convince search engine users that your page will offer what they are looking for.
In Google’s search results, this is where it can be displayed:
And this is what it looks like in the HTML code of the page:
<meta name="description" content="Do you want people to click on your search result? Learn how to write the best meta description. Including 7 characteristics and examples!" />
Why set a meta description?
The purpose of a meta description is simple: it needs to get someone searching with a search term on Google to click your link. In other words, meta descriptions are there to generate click-throughs from search engines.
Search engines say there is no direct SEO benefit from the meta description – they don’t use it in their ranking algorithm. But there is an indirect benefit: Google uses click-through-rate (CTR) to determine whether you’re a good result. If more people click on your result, Google considers you to be a good result and will – based on your position – move you up the rankings. This is why optimizing your meta description is important, as is optimizing your titles.
Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that Google will display the description that you’ve written. But, as there is a chance it will, it’s always worth the effort to add it to your post or page.
What does a good meta description contain?
Here’s a list of elements you need to write a good meta description:
- Keep it up to 155 characters
- Use an active voice and make it actionable
- Include a call to action
- Use your focus keyphrase
- Show specifications when needed
- Make sure it matches the content of the page
- Make it unique
