How to write meta descriptions for SEO
There’s a lot of mis-understandings about meta descriptions. Let me clear them up for you.
Why are meta descriptions important?
When you view a web page, you can’t see the meta description. Instead, this is an HTML tag that appears in the <head> of your page.
If you can’t see it on the page, why should you care?
When the search engines decide to show your page in the search results, they will use the meta description as a suggestion for what to publish under your listing. This is your opportunity to convince a search engine user to click on your listing- as opposed to the 9 other websites for any given query.
Modern search engines use the meta description as a suggestion. They sometimes re-write the meta description “for you” (or rather, for the user). There are ways to increase the chance of the search engines selecting your meta description- rather than the one they re-write for you.
What should you expect from meta descriptions?
Meta descriptions do not affect your rankings. A good meta description will convince someone to click on your search engine result, rather than the others on the search results page. A good meta description will result in:
- More clicks and visits to your page.
- A better click-through rate (according to Google Search Console).
You might not be able to get the #1 position but a well-written meta description can get you the click- and the customer!
The meta description process
