Be careful of duplicate Meta descriptions Expanded keyword examples: buying pug puppies, breeding pug puppies, potty training pug puppies, why pug puppies are great pets, etc. You can support expanded keywords in the page copy but keep your Meta description focused on the broad terms. If I had searched for “Pug Puppies for Sale” (likely the main keyword for that page), that entire string would have been bolded.

That helps the searcher quickly identify the page relevance. When I searched for “Pug Puppies”, you’ll notice in the above example that Google bolded the keyword I searched for in the Meta description for that page. Use them in the Meta title and descriptions. You should really only target two, similar broad keywords for each webpage on your site. With any smart SEO effort, you’ve developed a list of keywords you want to rank on. Be straight-forward and accurate to what the page content is, and you’ll improve your CTR and subsequent rankings.

That said if people click on your webpage in the SERPs only to find that the page has nothing to do with your advertising (or Meta description) then they will likely leave right away (you can see how quickly people leave your site with other Google Analytic metrics such as Bounce Rate and Time on Site – more on that later). The Meta description is essentially nothing more than advertising for a particular page. Make sure the copy connects to the webpage So, yes… Meta descriptions matter! Here are 6 things to consider when writing descriptions: 1. Not only are Meta descriptions what sells a click, they tell the user what they will find on the page they click to (or at least they should).

In addition to CTRs, bounce rates are also a ranking factor. HOWEVER, the click-through-rate (CTR) of your website is a ranking factor and a well-written Meta description can affect CTR. Do Meta descriptions matter?Īs I mentioned earlier, Google no longer considers a Meta description a ranking factor in their algorithm. This Meta description is 121 characters with spaces, and while in December of 2017, Google increased the character limit to 320, they shortly thereafter lowered it back down to 160-170 characters. In the example below, the blue box is surrounding the Meta description that is returned when a person searches for “Pug Puppies.” In the search engine results page (SERP), Google displays the Meta title, in this case “Pug Puppies for Sale | PuppySpot”, the corresponding website URL, and the Meta description. Let’s first back up and answer the general question… What is a Meta description? And, I could argue (and will) that while Meta descriptions are not a direct ranking factor for Google, they are an indirect factor and need to be taken seriously. We still use the keywords tag as a means of organizing and mapping our keywords to the pages they focus on. Way back in 2009, Google announced that they no longer use Meta keywords and description tags as ranking factors, but that doesn’t mean that they should be ignored.

Social media meta seo