Meta Description Optimization
Meta Description Optimization, one of the crucial areas when it comes to On Page SEO strategy in 2024. If we do it properly it helps to get 2X more users towards your site.
Let’s try to understand the background, usage and how to apply the same in detail.
Need help in writing Meta description & Increase CTR for your landing pages.
What is Meta description?
Meta description refers to the brief summary or description of one landing page which is going to display in search results with the help of HTML Meta tags.
Generally, meta tags are HTML elements that connect websites with search engines. Similar to meta descriptions we have some other meta tags such as meta description, keywords & robot tag.
Take a look at meta descriptions and how we use them on the website.
- <meta name=”title” content=”Free Web tutorials”>
- <meta name=”description” content=”Free Web tutorials”>
- <meta name=”keywords” content=”HTML, CSS, JavaScript”>
- <meta name=”robots” content=”index, follow”>
Other Important Meta Tags in SEO
- <meta name=”author” content=”John Doe”>
- <meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0″>
- <meta charset=”UTF-8″>
How Meta description will display in SERP
Example:
- Code: <meta name=”description” content=”Janardhan Nagaiahgari is a 8+ years of experienced Digital, performance & Growth Marketing professional”>
- How it will display in search results, below.
Hope you got some minimum idea about what is a meta description and how it will be displayed in search engine results.
More General information on meta descriptions
It establishes communication between both users and search engines. So we need to impress users and search engines so that we will get benefits from both sides.
Syntax for Meta description:
- <meta name=”description” content=”Free Web tutorials”>
How to Prepare Meta Descriptions that generate 2X more users
Example :
- Company Name: Janardhan.Digital
- Service Offering: Performance Marketing Consultant
- Year: 2024
- Service Mode: Online & Offline
Meta description: “Meet, Janardhan Nagaiahgari is an 8+ years of experienced Digital, performance & Growth Marketing professional. Book Free consultation today!”
Why Meta description is important for SEO?
- It Helps improve a page’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs)
- description tag helps search engines ot to understand the content and relevance of a page
- A good meta description will bring 3-5X more users than the usual numbers
- Better user experience- even without visiting the site itself he/she will be able to understand the intent behind the landing page.
Best Practices for Meta description?
- Character Limit: write brief summary of landing page in <160 characters
- Primary focused keyword must place at the beginning of the description
- Focus more on adding action keywords such as best, top, learning, No.1 & others.
- Make it relevant, it should be 100% relevant as per your inside page content
- Brand Name at the end of the year description.
- Try to add current month and year to maintain freshness
WordPress Meta description Optimization
Inside wordpress we have a special feature called meta tags variable such as site description, Page Number, current date, current descriptions, separator, tagline & other. Make sure to update the meta description whenever you change the description of your page they will also get updated.
Mistakes to Avoid on meta description?
There are some commonly made mistakes by the people who are not much aware about meta description optimization. Some of the common mistakes that we can avoid are
- Focus keyword repetition
- Placing Irrelevant keywords to the description
- Longer descriptions than recommended
- Outdated year name mentioned
- Same description for different landing pages
- Too short meta descriptions
- Exceeding 160 characters limit
- Keyword stuffing
Conclusion
In simple words meta descriptions play an important role when it comes to On page SEO strategy, so we should be very choosy and make sure it is as per search engine guidelines. We have mentioned all the required syntaxes, guidelines and tips to improve the same for your SEO game.
