Welcome back to another episode of A Journey Through SEO, this time discussing meta descriptions. Today’s topic of discovery are meta descriptions!

Introduction

You know, the often overlooked tiny blurbs underneath a Google result. These small pieces of text can have a big impact on your website’s search engine ranking and are absolutely worth noting and crafting to be both interesting and informative.

What Are Meta Descriptions?

A meta description is a short piece of text that summarizes the content of a webpage. They are displayed in search engine results, giving users a preview of what they can expect to see on the webpage. It’s important to note that meta descriptions do not directly affect your website’s ranking. They can impact click-through rates, though, which is a factor that search engines take into consideration.

How Meta Descriptions Affect SEO

As mentioned earlier, meta descriptions can impact click-through rates. When users see a well-written and informative meta description in the search results, they are more likely to click on the link and visit the webpage. This increased click-through rate sends a positive signal to search engines, indicating that the webpage is relevant and valuable to users. As a result, search engines may reward the webpage with a higher ranking.

How to Write Effective Meta Descriptions

If you do not write your own, Google will pull a few lines it thinks are valuable and summarize a webpage – this is a big waste! Thankfully, writing decent meta descriptions is actually fairly simple. It’s important to keep a few things in mind. First, keep them short and to the point. Aim for 150-160 characters, including spaces. Second, include relevant keywords that accurately describe the content on the webpage. Finally, make sure the meta description accurately reflects the content on the webpage. Misleading or clickbaity meta descriptions may lead to a high bounce rate, which could negatively impact your website’s ranking.

Auditing for Meta Descriptions

Now, if you’re loooking to audit a website for meta descriptions, we turn to our previously mentioned, holy grail of SEO tools: Screaming Frog. There is a whole section for the topic, which will detail which URLs are lacking a meta description, or maybe have the same description. It tells you which descriptions are too long or too short, and helps you optimize that way. It’s always a good thing to have and to keep track of.

A screenshot of a SEO tool, Screaming Frog highlighting the meta description section.

Conclusion

Meta descriptions may seem like a small detail, but they can have a big impact on your website’s SEO. By writing informative and accurate meta descriptions that include relevant keywords, you can improve your website’s click-through rate and potentially boost your search engine ranking for not all that much extra work. Well worth the effort!