Having a well-written meta description is something that so many companies overlook, for one simple reason: it doesn’t have too much direct effect on SEO.

But neglecting to write a top-notch meta-description can be costly to your organization in lost business. An effective meta-description is one of the last hopes you have of getting readers to click on your link and visit your website. You’ve probably spent valuable time and effort working out work keywords and optimising your page so it shows up on the first page in the search engine results.

Getting there is only half the battle. Once your link shows up in the results, you still have to convince people to click on your link! And that’s where a meta-description comes in.

With a meta description, you only get a small amount of space and you need to think of it as a two-line sales pitch. It needs to describe what your page is about, include your keyword, tell your readers why it contains all the information they’re looking for, and have a call to action. All in 155 characters or less!

So how do you write a meta-description that gets your readers into a clicking frenzy? Here are some winning tips to follow:

1)    Use action

Tell readers exactly what they can do if they click. Using words like “Learn”, “Discover” and “Get” followed with specifics of what they will learn, discover or get, works well.

2)    Tell readers the benefits

Tell readers what they can expect when they click on your link, and why it will benefit them.

3)    Keep it short

The ideal meta-description is 155 characters, including spaces. That’s not much room to play with! Make sure you stick to the limit, otherwise Google will cut your meta-description off mid-sentence.

4)    Don’t overpromise

It’s tempting to stuff your meta-description with keywords and promise your readers that your page is going to be the best thing they’ll read ever! But this can lead to disappointment if you can’t deliver on that promise. Your readers will quickly click away, increasing your bounce rate.

5)    Keep it concise

With a tiny word limit you have to use descriptive words and delete as many fluff words as possible.

Example

If you don’t write a meta-description, Google will show the first 155 characters from the first paragraph on your page, and this might not be optimised well enough to encourage a click through. It’s possible that you’ll miss out on a chance to be able to sell to prospective buyers, and why would you want to miss out on that? The meta-description is your last chance to win over your prospects and get them to click on your link rather than the other 9 showing up on the page.

Have you got any other click-winning tips for a meta-description? Be sure to let us know! And if you liked this post, please share it.

Interested in learning more about SEO? Download The Ultimate Beginners Guide to SEO here.