Like the title element and unlike the meta keywords tag, this one is important,
both from a human and search engine perspective.
<meta name="Description" content="Get your site on the first page of Google,
Yahoo and Bing too, using simple seo. Call us on 0845 094 0839. A company
based in Scotland." />
Forget whether or not to put your keyword in it, make it relevant to a searcher
and write it for humans, not search engines. If you want to have this 20 word
snippet which accurately describes the page you have optimised for one or
two keyword phrases when people use Google to search, make sure the
keyword is in there.
I must say, I normally do include the keyword in the description as this usually
gets it in your serp snippet, but I think it would be a fair guess to think more
trusted sites would benefit more from any boost a keyword in the meta
description tag might have, than an untrusted site would.
Google looks at the description but there is debate whether it actually uses the
description tag to rank sites. I think they might at some level, but again, a very
weak signal. I certainly don’t know of an example that clearly shows a meta
description helping a page rank.
Sometimes, I will ask a question with my titles, and answer it in the
description, sometimes I will just give a hint;
It’s also very important in my opinion to have unique title tags and unique
meta descriptions on every page on your site. It’s a preference of mine, but I
don’t generally autogenerate descriptions with my cms of choice either –
normally I’ll elect to remove the tag entirely before I do this, and my pages still
do well (and Google generally pulls a decent snippet out on its own which you
can then go back and optimise for serps. There are times when I do
autogenerate descriptions and that’s when I can still make them unique to the
page using some sort of server-side php.
Tin Foil Hat Time
Sometimes I think if your titles are spammy, your keywords are spammy, and
your meta description is spammy, Google might stop right there – even they
probably will want to save bandwidth at some time. Putting a keyword in the
description won’t take a crap site to number 1 or raise you 50 spots in a
competitive niche – so why optimise for a search engine when you can
optimise for a human? – I think that is much more valuable, especially if you
are in the mix already – that is – on page one for your keyword.
So, the meta description tag is important in Google, Yahoo and Bing and
every other engine listing – very important to get it right. Make it for humans.
Oh and by the way – Google seems to truncate anything over @156
characters in the meta description, although this may actually be limited by
pixel width in 2013.
both from a human and search engine perspective.
<meta name="Description" content="Get your site on the first page of Google,
Yahoo and Bing too, using simple seo. Call us on 0845 094 0839. A company
based in Scotland." />
Forget whether or not to put your keyword in it, make it relevant to a searcher
and write it for humans, not search engines. If you want to have this 20 word
snippet which accurately describes the page you have optimised for one or
two keyword phrases when people use Google to search, make sure the
keyword is in there.
I must say, I normally do include the keyword in the description as this usually
gets it in your serp snippet, but I think it would be a fair guess to think more
trusted sites would benefit more from any boost a keyword in the meta
description tag might have, than an untrusted site would.
Google looks at the description but there is debate whether it actually uses the
description tag to rank sites. I think they might at some level, but again, a very
weak signal. I certainly don’t know of an example that clearly shows a meta
description helping a page rank.
Sometimes, I will ask a question with my titles, and answer it in the
description, sometimes I will just give a hint;
It’s also very important in my opinion to have unique title tags and unique
meta descriptions on every page on your site. It’s a preference of mine, but I
don’t generally autogenerate descriptions with my cms of choice either –
normally I’ll elect to remove the tag entirely before I do this, and my pages still
do well (and Google generally pulls a decent snippet out on its own which you
can then go back and optimise for serps. There are times when I do
autogenerate descriptions and that’s when I can still make them unique to the
page using some sort of server-side php.
Tin Foil Hat Time
Sometimes I think if your titles are spammy, your keywords are spammy, and
your meta description is spammy, Google might stop right there – even they
probably will want to save bandwidth at some time. Putting a keyword in the
description won’t take a crap site to number 1 or raise you 50 spots in a
competitive niche – so why optimise for a search engine when you can
optimise for a human? – I think that is much more valuable, especially if you
are in the mix already – that is – on page one for your keyword.
So, the meta description tag is important in Google, Yahoo and Bing and
every other engine listing – very important to get it right. Make it for humans.
Oh and by the way – Google seems to truncate anything over @156
characters in the meta description, although this may actually be limited by
pixel width in 2013.
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