Optimizing META Descriptions

The inclusion of META descriptions is essential for any SEO campaign. Their importance is second only to page title. For this reasons, well-written descriptions may ultimately vault your ranking well a bit.

In general, two relatively short sentences (under 50 words altogether) should suffice. This keeps the SERP listing clean and easy-to-read. It also forces you to be concise when it comes to incorporating your keywords and marketing messages.

As is the case with most SEO strategies, the important keywords and phrases should appear near the beginning of the META description. This increases their prominence and emphasis . These terms should also appear in the same order as they appear on other parts of the page, maintaining theme consistency.

The key to writing an excellent META description, as opposed to a mediocre META description, has to do with the way you mingle keywords and marketing messages. Yet again, the dilemma of art vs. science takes center stage. From one side, you need to have the keywords and terms in the right place to maximize their prominence. From another standpoint, you need strong marketing language and persuasive copy to incite searchers to click on your listing. You need a strong call-to-action. After all, you can incorporate the keywords you want to increase your rank, but if searchers aren’t compelled to click, then it’s all for none.

Finally, you need to read and re-read your META descriptions over and over again. Ensure that sentences are well-structured, clear, concise, keyword-rich, and compelling. Get others to read your copy as well. Most importantly, ask if they can gather what the target page is about and if they feel compelled to click after reading your copy.