When your site comes up in Google’s search results you’ll see a snippet or short text preview displayed below the link. It will either be something Google grabs from your site, or words you control by creating a “meta description.”
The quality of your meta descriptions can have a direct impact on the number of people who click through to your site. That’s why it’s worth taking the time to create them.
Relevant snippets accurately represent your web pages and provide a clear idea of their content. You should have a different meta description for every page on your site. If you have a large site you’ll need to prioritize this task by addressing the most important pages first.
Meta descriptions can– but don’t have to be– in sentence format. Here’s an example of a succinct and informative meta description.
Here’s a really bad snippet. It is uninformative, difficult to read, and even has a typo!
Tips for writing a good meta description
- Avoid duplicating information already in the page title
- Make sure it accurately describes the page content
- Make it clear and easy to read
- Don’t exceed 160 characters (or it will get truncated in the Search results)
- Think of it as the first step in the visitor experience of your site
While accurate meta descriptions can improve click-through rates, they do not affect your ranking within the search results.
