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How do you write page descriptions in your meta tags that work for SEO? While Google is only as open as it has to be about how it chooses what to display in search snippets (see Matt Cutts’ whiteboard talk on snippets for a useful overview), we’re talking about this issue with site owners and SEO specialists all the time, and are developing some best practice.

In essence, the description is a short summary of a page’s contents, often displayed in search results. It’s usually picked up by external search engines such as Google and displayed as the search result snippet – this is especially likely to happen if the description contains the search terms.

Descriptions in tags have little or no effect on a page’s ranking in external search engines, but a well-written description can significantly increase click-through rates.

A well-written description:

• is unique for every page (you’ll often see sites where pages at lower levels have all been given the same description)
• accurately describes the content of the page
• if the page is a landing page, describes the scope of sub-pages
• complements the page title
• contains target keywords that reflect the content of the page
• is 156 characters long (current display limit of a Google search snippet)
• …or less – some argue that shorter text with white space has more impact in a search results page
• takes account of where text will wrap
• is interesting and enticing to the target audience
• contains a call to action

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Posted by Martin Wake to SEO, Web writing, Writing for search