9 March 2016

SEO Search Engine Optimisation

What are Meta Description Tags and How to Use Them Effectively?

You remember that pedantic English teacher that used to always tell you to be more descriptive when you’re writing? Well, that teacher wasn’t exactly wrong, and this principle can be applied digitally to your benefit as well. Your descriptive skills could come in handy when you are writing Meta Description tags for your website or products.

But what are Meta Description tags?

Well, simply put, they summarize a web page for you so that the Search Engine and user can see clearly what that page will be about. The meta description text that can be a short paragraph long that appears on the query page of a search and is very useful in determining the Click Through Rate (CTR). The CTR is a measure of how many people click on your website when it appears on the query page out of the total number of times your website appears on the query page in the first place.

You can use meta description tags in order to relay what that page will tell the user (And the search engine) if they click or crawl on it respectively.

It is important to point out, however, that Google may not necessarily use the text you write as the meta description, as it may want to use something else that it thinks is slightly more relevant. This is why it is important to have a web page that accurately gives a message, and have the meta tag reflect exactly the same message in a more concise way.

The example below shows where the meta description appears:

Why are meta description tags important?

As outlined above, Meta Descriptions are a way for the user to really get a feel of what they will be getting by clicking on the website. Obviously, this needs to be accurate or the user will click on the link and find that it was not what they expected. This can result in a poor user experience, which is something Google really frowns upon. Plus, you don’t really want to confuse Google robots, either as none of that would be to your benefit.

So now you know about meta descriptions, you can go ahead and use them! Just make sure you don’t copy and paste the text from your webpage into the meta description field or you will open a whole new can of worms (which we have actually reserved for you).

If you are unsure of where to add these, or want more information, why not give us here at FDC a call? We can book a free consultation with you to ensure you understand everything you need to know and more, for no charge at all!