Metadescriptions - The essential and free way to steer more visitors to your website

Meta-descriptions - your most valuable website promotion tool. Your meta-descriptions are often the first impression your potential customers have of your business. Make them count. By crafting engaging, keyword-rich descriptions for your key pages, you’ll increase clicks, boost your SEO over time, and bring more traffic to your site. Here's how.

 

What are Meta-descriptions?

In search results, Meta-descriptions are the 160-character grey text that sits just under the blue meta-title link. While they might look small, they hold immense power.

Without a well-written meta-description, search engines like Google will pull random text from your page to fill the space. This often leads to results that are unhelpful, unappealing, and fail to showcase the value of your business.

A good meta-description, on the other hand, grabs attention. It identifies the reader’s problem, explains how you’ll solve it, and ends with a clear call to action.

 

Why do meta-descriptions matter?

Imagine someone searches for a service or product you provide.
They’ll see several options in the search results.
If your meta-description speaks directly to their needs and highlights why you’re the best choice, they’ll be much more likely to click on your link.

This increased click-through rate (CTR) signals to Google that your page is valuable.
In time, this will almost certainly improve your search ranking over time.

 

How can we write effective meta-descriptions?

A great meta-description needs to balance creativity and strategy.

Follow these seven tips -

  1. Address your audience’s problem – Think about what they need and show you understand their pain point.
  2. Highlight your solution – Explain how your product or service solves this pain point.
  3. Include a key word or phrase – Use your most important search term naturally within the description.
  4. Add a call to action (CTA) – Encourage them to take the next step, like calling, getting in touch, or visiting your site.
  5. Capitalise key words – Make important words stand out by capitalising the first letter.
  6. Keep it short – Stick to 160 characters or less to avoid being cut off in search results.
  7. Cover all key pages – Focus on your home page and landing pages, but don’t neglect other important sections.
     

Here's a shockingly poor example -

meta bad seo

This tells our readers nothing about the benefits of the service. It lacks keywords, and what's more - there's no Call To Action

 

But this is way better -

meta good ex

 

This example addresses the problem, explains the solution, uses keywords, and ends with a clear call to action.

 

Isn't it time to review your meta-descriptions

Are your meta-descriptions working hard for you?

Or are they letting potential leads slip through the cracks?

Take a look at your website and ask yourself -

Are your meta-descriptions clear, engaging, and under 160 characters?
Do they include keywords and a compelling call to action?
Are they unique to each page and tailored to your target audience?
If not, it’s time to make some changes.

Well-written meta-descriptions act as powerful magnets, attracting the right audience to your site.

 

 

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Dec 16, 2024
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