The Reaction Engine SEO Blog

Let’s face it – the meta description is a much-travelled element. It also attracts a great deal of controversy in SEO circles. Should you use keywords? Is it solely for increasing clickthrough rate? Let’s look at what you shouldn’t do with your descriptions – and perhaps the best approach to a meta description will be more clear.

Too short

If you don’t have enough to say about a page to cover two lines (in English, about 25-30 words) then it’s probably time to rethink the page entirely. If there’s less than about 10 words, search engines may never show the text, which means next to no-one is going to read it anyway.

Too long

Look at it this way – a description is primarily used when displaying your page in an index of other pages – so it helps people to select the right choice from a lot of other things on the menu. If a description is too long, someone else is going to cut it short for you – a search engine, an aggregator, a web browser. And if no-one reads it, any time you spend writing it would be more productive spent re-arranging the spoons in your cutlery drawer.

Not related to the page

SEO is about convincing an algorithm that your page is more relevant than other ones. If a software program with fancy language processing is unable to work out that the description accurately describes the page, then it’s time to think again. And don’t forget – this text is going to show up on the most viewed type of page on any search engine – don’t make them work. Or demote your page at the indexing stage.

Boring

Don’t forget that a description is going to be read by people before they clickthroughto your site: longwided sentences aren’t going to cut it. Remember that people tend to “scan” the page when choosing the right search result, so make sure the information you provide is easily digestible. The right message needs to appeal to the broad audience who potential find your pages via search – but also provide a compelling reason for them to click your link.

It’s always worth the time to create a description that does your content justice. Go forth, and get traffic