The description meta tag, is an html attribute useful for offering a brief summary of the content of a web page. It is composed as follows: , where between the two quotation marks immediately after the content heading, the content you want to use as a description of the page should be inserted. That meta description, as well as any other meta tag should be inserted within the section.
The description meta tag of any web page is a very useful onpage seo factor for both the search engine and the user. The meta description is one of the elements of the website visible from the outside and therefore essential to optimize for two main reasons.
To allow users and the search engine to understand even without clicking on it and visiting it, a preview, a summary of the page content, more comprehensive than the title meta tag. And also to improve and optimize the CTR from users using the search engine.
The description is identified in the HTML language thanks to the meta description tag. In the Google serp, the description does not have a hyperlink that offers the possibility to access the specific page by clicking on it during the search session. But it has several lines of descriptive text that change based on different factors, such as the type of device used by the user (desktop or mobile).
Meta description: why optimize it?
Although it is not a ranking factor recognized by Google, which announced in 2009 not to use it among the algorithmic factors, not optimizing the description of a web page can lead to several problems such as:
- Receiving unnecessary clicks
- Confusing the search engine and the user
- Not getting enough useful clicks
- Leave it to Google to create it
- see instead of description html code
Of course, failure to optimize the description leads to other issues, but only these mentioned, lead to missed useful clicks.
Users need to be measured within an entire search session, which is increasingly large and precise. A Google user, for example, may type and retype several keywords several times during a session, and choose to browse several resources until finding the correct one. To speed up this process, it is obvious that the user makes use of reading the text written in the description that appears in the ad string in the serp. Leaving it blank or to chance can mean missing the opportunity to be chosen by the user.
Meta description tag: how to optimize it
Precisely because users peer through the ads in serp more and more precisely, it is good not to let the search engine choose the text to be included in the meta tag description of web pages. This guide on how to optimize the description of every single web page of your site, is also full of best practices imparted by Google’s guidelines in order to accurately summarize the page content, improve snippets with meta tag description making it more effective and show better snippets to users.
1.Main keyword
The first thing to keep in mind when optimizing a description is that it should give information about a web page within the structure of the site. Consequently, since for the page title we chose the one that has the most relevant focus to the content of the page being optimized, in the meta description it will be the same.
2.Content intent
During the keyword research phase, it is good practice to identify the search intent of a keyword by looking at the results Google returns, their content, suggestion and related keywords. Assuming this has been done, as a result we will have content that exposes the topic to the user with a series of topics that respond to a search intent or need. For example in a topic, commercial (how much does it cost) or informational (where to find) topics may be identifiable. By identifying topics we will have the ability to better explain to both the user and the search engine, through reading the description, what specifically the page containing that description meta tag is about.
3.Formatting the description meta tag
Once the previous elements are known, a description of the page can be composed that is representative, communicative and useful to the search engine, the user and the page itself. So as to avoid unnecessary clicks, attract useful clicks and avoid confusing search engine and user, with the benefit of improving CTR.
Since the search engine offers the possibility of including more characters in the description meta tag than in the title meta tag, we can take advantage of this difference to expand the text used in the title tag.
If, for example, in the title we had to be more concise, here, we can use keyword variations, more descriptive attributes, complete sentences, long tail, and even communicate positioning or usp (competitive advantage).
an example of how to compose, format the description is given from this same page:
“Meta tag description: how and why to optimize web page description. See an example of how to format the meta description to increase CTR.”
where we have: [focus keyword + variant1 ( optimize description ) + variant2 ( format meta description ) + USP ( increase CTR )].
4.Meta description length
Meta descriptions can have different lengths, I know that in other blogs they tell you that generally Google truncates descriptions to 155, 160 characters, but I don’t want to give you a length to adhere to as there is no minimum or maximum length within which to limit yourself to compose a meta tag description. However, Google advises you to create it long enough to be fully displayed in search results. Observing the serp is crucial as you should know that users may see snippets that also vary in the length of the description, depending on what device they use and what query they typed in. An effective meta description must contain all the information useful for a user, to understand whether the web page that is the subject of the description, contains the information they are looking for. Consider that your goal is to improve CTR and get clicks that then turn into satisfied surfers to your site.
5.Optimize the meta description on the source code side
Unlike the meta title, which is often automatically filled by the title you give to the page, the description meta tag should always be filled with text. You must therefore check whether is present, whether it is present between the tags, and whether the formatting of the text is not poorly coded. When you leave the description meta tag empty, the user will see the html code of the page, or, if the page is not blocked by the robots.txt file, Google will extract part of the text algorithmically, if it is not blocked, the user will see the following message: No information available for this page.
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