How to Write High-Performing Meta Descriptions In All Time

seo
When it comes to digital content, it can be difficult to stand out in today’s market. Improving the value of a webpage isn’t always about the copy on the page. Content also needs optimized meta descriptions to improve things like click-through rates (CTR) and the perception of customer options and result quality.

Search engine optimization (SEO) meta descriptions are short blurbs of text that briefly describe the content of web pages. These appear within search engine results pages (SERPs) when a user searches for a term or phrase.

Meta descriptions are written in HTML summarizing the webpage’s content. In the HTML code, the description looks like this:

<meta name= “description” content= “here is where you place the description”/>

Google determines meta description lengths based on pixels. The limit for desktop is 920 pixels, or about 158 characters, and 680 pixels on mobile devices, or roughly 120 characters. When creating these descriptions, you need to keep these restrictions in mind.

An engaging sales page coupled with an optimized meta description can increase traffic to your page exponentially and boost conversions. It will set you apart from the search snippets chosen by Google.

While meta descriptions are search snippets, search snippets don’t have to be meta descriptions (confusing, we know). Meta descriptions are an HTML tag you control while search snippets can be HTML tags or descriptions generated by Google.

Meta descriptions appear in SERPs with title tags and slugs. A title tag is a version of the page title that’s added to the HTML. This can be the same as or different from the headline in the copy. The slug is the URL for the page.

Meta descriptions are an invaluable element of your marketing strategy. They are essentially a mini ad for your webpage. Carefully curated meta descriptions look better in search results and increase click-through rates.

Here are some reasons why you should use SEO meta descriptions:

  • Look more professional in search results. If you craft your meta descriptions carefully, they will look more appealing to browsers. In a sea of search results, you must set yourself apart from the competition. Consider meta descriptions if you are planning a content marketing refresh.
  • Higher click-through rates increase search rankings. Meta descriptions don’t increase search rankings by themselves. However, the increased click-through rates resulting from effective meta descriptions will. Search rankings are a vital component of web traffic from search engines. The first-page search results from Google capture 71-92% of all traffic clicks. This is compared to 6% of traffic clicks on the second page.
  • They are an important part of a larger rich snippet plan. SERPs can be so much more than just the title tag, slug, and meta description. There can be other additions that add value to your search results.

The process

So, how do you write effective meta-descriptions? Take a look at the step-by-step plan outlined below.

  1. Identify your customer’s journey

    Make sure you know your target audience and their optimal buying journey. You also need to understand what happens at each stage of the marketing funnel. The marketing funnel tracks your customer’s journey from their initial awareness of your brand to the point where they make a purchase.

    Meta descriptions can optimize your market funnel. For example, potential customers may stumble across your brand in a search or be evaluating whether or not you’re the best option. Either way, meta descriptions are an easy way for potential customers to get to know you.

    How to Write High-Performing Meta Descriptions In All Time
  2. Set a tone that is consistent with your brand

    You want potential traffic to get to know your brand through a limited number of characters, so write meta descriptions that illustrate who you are and why they should click on your page. You need to figure it out your brand message therefore before creating your meta descriptions.

    All your meta descriptions to have a clear and consistent voice. Setting a consistent tone within your descriptions will give your business a sense of authenticity and foster brand recognition. Try to make your audience feel like they know your company and what you stand for.

  3. Answer your audience’s questions

    What does your audience want to know, what is your page about, and why should a browser choose you? When you answer these questions, always put the most important information first. For example, if your company can provide internet phone services from home, tell them the most prominent features of this in the first sentence.

  4. Add the primary keyword

    Consider what the primary keyword should be for your webpage. These should be the keywords your audience is searching for in a search engine. When coming up with keywords, think about what you offer and what your audience will type in to look for you.

    Also, take advantage of trending social headlines. Keep track of prominent figures like influencers to gather relevant keywords.

    Keywords will appear in bold letters in the meta description. For example, below, when video call was placed in Google, the words are bolded to draw the reader’s eye to them. You want any phrase that contains the keyword to be impactful.

  5. Develop benefits-focused content

    Make your meta description conversational, but also let your audience know the benefits of clicking on your content. For example, this search tells customers they can ‘Step into the perfect vintage-inspired clothing. It also includes a call to action. It tells the audience they can ‘Shop now for free shipping over $150!’

Takeaways

The creation of meta descriptions gives organizations control over how they present themselves in SERPs. Content Marketers need to consider the company’s brand and target audience when crafting these. Developing this material should be an active part of content creation.

Producing effective meta descriptions will increase your CTR and boost your search rankings. The ability to use this inexpensive method of marketing should therefore be fully utilized. Your team spends time and resources to curate an attractive platform for your audience. By taking advantage of meta descriptions, you’re ensuring that your users will see the fruits of their labor.

Finally, remember to always be creating content and researching for the most up-to-date trends. Nothing is worse than an outdated website and the same goes for your meta descriptions. It’s an easy way to increase website traffic and lead your organization to success.

“The general assumption under such an approach is that searching users are often the best judges of relevance, so that if they select a particular search result, it is likely to be relevant, or at least more relevant than the presented alternatives.”

Your website is the gateway to your products and services. It is how customers will usually interact with your eCommerce business and where they will – hopefully – make purchases. However, if it’s not properly optimized it won’t get found. But what exactly is the optimization and how can you optimize your homepage to ensure a good ranking on search engines?

There are many things to consider when doing business online. It’s not enough to simply set up a website. You’ve got to pick the right technology – whether that’s the best text messaging apps for Android and iOS, the right website host, or a great live chat solution. Not only that but your website should be well designed, be easy to navigate, have great product images, and have perfect content.

Your website could be the best-designed site in the world but still, go completely unnoticed. Without effective optimization, potential customers will simply not find your website when they search for the products or services they need. Your search ranking is an essential factor when it comes to doing any sort of business online.

In the dictionary, optimization is defined as:

“an act, process, or methodology of making something (such as a design, system, or decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible…”

In relation to websites, we talk about search engine optimization (SEO) which refers to how we customize sites using relevant terms and words in order to increase visibility when people search for things. The higher your visibility, then the higher your ranking – and the more likely that customers will visit your site.

Any search engine uses bots to visit and examine all pages on the internet. They collect and collate information from those pages then put them in a special index. Once indexed, algorithms analyze all that data using hundreds or thousands of factors to decide where that web page/site should appear in relation to a specific query from a user.

For example, if you wanted to search for a property to rent in London, a simple search with those terms would give thousands of results. But the ones that rank the highest will have used a number of more specific terms that the search engine recognizes as being relevant.

Improving SEO rankings is not only about keywords and phrases. There are many factors that major search engines such as Google take into account when calculating where a website should be placed.

If you are building a new website, there are a number of factors to take into account to ensure that your site is optimized and that it receives the best ranking it can.

  1. Content
    Your website may contain good phrases and words but unless your is of sufficient quality, then you will not get far. A page should contain a minimum of 300 words of original content (search engines can spot plagiarized or duplicated content and will penalize you for doing so).
    Long rambling paragraphs are another no-no. Ideally, you should break your content into smaller chunks and use headings and subheadings where appropriate. Google, who processes around 3.5 billion searches per day, also in 2018 introduced what is known as eat Certriea.
    E = Expertise
    A = Authoritativeness
    T = Trustworthiness
    These criteria are especially essential if you are discussing sensitive subjects, for example, treatments for cancer. A good EAT score would cite peer-reviewed research, statements from recognized professionals/experts in the field, or links to reliable sources such as .edu or .gov websites.
  2. SEO Keywords and Phrases
    Your quality content also needs to contain effective keywords or phrases to optimize it for searches. Such words need to be relevant to the subject matter to recognize the sort of terms a user may use to search. Following a simple checklist can be a big help with this part.
    • Have one main keyword and a few related keywords (3 to 4 should suffice).
    • Always include the primary keyword in the page’s URL.
    • Also include that primary keyword in your meta description, in your title tag, and in your H1 (main heading).
    • Create varied content with keywords and phrases throughout.
    • Use subheadings and bullet lists where appropriate.
    • Any links to other pages on your domain should have a clear and effective anchor.
    • Use images, a good guide is one image per 300 words or so.
    For example, if you were selling a small business phone service, then there are certain keywords you would want to use, such as; reliable, secure, cloud-based, telephony, and other phrases that reflect the features of your product.
  3. Backlinks
    Backlinks are another useful tool to optimize your site and push you up rankings. If other websites recognize the quality of your own site and link to your site from theirs, then search engines will note this and rank you higher. But how do you get those sites to drive traffic to you?
    If you create quality and engaging content that other sites want to share, then they will include these backlinks to their own site. Unique content can be a great way of encouraging other sites to backlink to you, as is the use of good infographics, interesting statistics, or unique content.
    It is also worth considering what tools you use as an eCommerce business. If you have a well-optimized website and have backlinks feeding to your site, then you may also be selling via multiple channels. Keeping track of your stock using the best inventory management software helps ensure you know what you have available to sell and avoids customer disappointment – you don’t want those backlinks to be from negative reviews, after all.
  4. Site Crawlability
    It may sound like a strange term but crawlability describes a search engine bot’s ability to access and crawl all of the content throughout your site. If those little virtual bots cannot access any of your web pages to index that content, those pages will never be ranked.
    Make sure that your site allows bots access to every webpage by having a good linking structure that fluidly connects all of your pages together. If there are pages you don’t want to be crawled, you can use a robots.txt file to exclude them. For Google, their Search Console not only lets you see what pages have been crawled, but it also has a robots.txt generator you can use. Search Console also offers a secondary method for Google to discover your pages by submitting them in a sitemap.xml file.
  5. Security
    People may ask why security is important to site optimization. Remember: no one wants to use a site that puts them at risk. You can forget about good backlinks if your site is not viewed as trustworthy!
    Make sure you always use HTTPS encryption on your site. This will provide you with SSL certificates, offering a trusted and secure connection between your portal and your customer’s device. For accessibility, make sure your site is well-coded and that it has a sitemap so that the bots and search engines know what your site is about.
  6. Speed
    In this part of the information era, users expect fast speeds when accessing a website. This is another crucial factor for optimizing your website. If your website has a low loading speed, then you will be unlikely to figure higher up any search rankings. Consider these three loading benchmarks:
    • High-ranked sites: less than three seconds
    • ECommerce sites: 2 seconds or less
    • Optimum time (as seen by Google): less then half a second.
    Your development team should be looking at everything they can do to increase speeds, especially in light of Google’s core web vitals ranking. This can include things such as combining files and minimizing HTTP requests. They should also look at your server’s response time.
  7. Engagement Levels
    While quality content is a crucial factor, it does not tell the whole story. Even the best content will not be of much use if your users do not engage with it. Google uses the rank brain to monitor and assess how much users engage with your site. Metrics like click-through rate, dwell time (how long a user spends on your page), and bounce rates are taken into account.
    A high bounce rate – where people leave your site quickly – will affect your overall performance and ranking. Make sure not only that your content is good, but that the overall design of the site is high quality too and that the site is easy to navigate around.
  • Optimizing your home page and website is crucial if you expect to do any level of business online. It’s also important to remember that this is not just a one-time task. Some of the criteria for ranking sites can change on a regular basis, so it is essential that you carry out regular assessments and make relevant changes as needed.
  • Look at everything that makes your business more efficient and engaging better with your customer base. That includes not only your website but also utilizing tools such as a VoIP system for small businesses. Having a good, well-ranking website is great, but it needs to be a starting point rather than an end goal.
  • With the eCommerce sector becoming increasingly competitive, your sales conversions and revenue stream depend a lot on people finding your site with little effort. Once they find you, it’s time to drive them towards a purchase, provide excellent service, and push them towards becoming repeat customers.