21. Creating Meta Descriptions

Meta Descriptions are an effective way of drawing attention and making your webpage sound more interesting. Continue below to find out more about how to create a search engine friendly meta description.

Are meta descriptions present today?

You can find out if meta descriptions are present by right clicking and choosing ‘view page source’ in Firefox and Chrome or ‘view source’ in Internet Explorer. After that, you go to edit in the menu, choose find in the drop down menu and search for meta name=”description”.

You probably have seen meta descriptions before, but might just not be aware of what they look like.  Therefore, here’s an example of the code used to create a meta description:

<META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”Write a descriptive sentence or two about the main topics on your webpage here.”>

This is how it looks like when searching in Google.

Why care about meta descriptions?

Even though meta descriptions itself are not ranking factors, good meta descriptions are likely to lead to higher click through rate (CTR) in search engines. And since CTR is a ranking factor, meta descriptions will indirectly impact your search engine rankings.

Having a well written meta description can also improve the trust of your website and brand.

Keyword usage in meta descriptions

Just like many other parts of your webpage, it’s also useful to include keywords in meta descriptions. It should be done in a natural manner, occuring in a sentence and not like some sort of name dropping.

Try to make your sentences as descriptive and focused on the topic of the webpage as possible and the rest will follow naturally.

How well does your meta descriptions draw attention to your content?

Ask yourself if you would click on your own meta description if it was found in a search engine result page. If it’s not very interesting, you might consider revising it to become more appealing.