How to Improve Your Meta Descriptions？

How to Improve Your Meta Descriptions

Since click-through rate on the SERPs is seen as a potential ranking factor, the best way to make your meta descriptions SEO-friendly is to write them with the intention of getting more clicks. Think of your search results like a traditional ad in a newspaper or magazine. Classic print advertising used headlines and taglines to entice a person to call a phone number or travel to an address to buy a product in-store.

With your search results, your page title is your headline, your meta description is your tagline, and the URL is the address. Since a meta description is essentially a micro-pitch for a webpage, you should fill it with active language that will make people want to click on your result.Related:GroupBuy SEO Tools

Write a description that conveys your website’s unique selling point (USP). Think: why is my page specifically better than all the other pages in the results? Don’t be afraid to make an emotional appeal with your message. Emotional advertising has traditionally found a lot of success tapping into people’s feelings.

A study in 2014 conducted by the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow suggested that human emotion can be categorized into four main buckets:Related:GroupBuy SEO Tools

• Happy
• Sad
• Angry/disgusted
• Afraid/surprised

Google gives room for about a 1-2 sentence (160 character) summary below every search result.

So, in one to two sentences, your descriptions should offer a compelling reason to visit the webpage. Add a clear call to action, address an emotional pain point, or offer a specific benefit to visitors.

If it’s too long, it won’t fit and people will inevitably glance over it. If it’s too vague, people just won’t care. There are always other results to click on. So, you should aim to connect with a searcher’s emotion in two sentences or less. 

It’s also important to have unique descriptions for every page on your website. Our on-site SEO study found that nearly 30% of the sites had duplicate meta descriptions and 25% had pages with no meta description at all.

SEO Friendly Meta Descriptions

To encourage clicks and bring visitors from search to your website, do the following with your descriptions:

1. Keep them about 1-2 sentences (140-160 characters) long
2. Don’t forget to include your keyword
3. Add a call-to-action if it’s relevant
4. Avoid duplicate meta descriptions
5. Make them meaningful and descriptive, matching your content
6. Target an emotion