Let’s talk about the SEO meta description. When you optimize a page for search engines, there’s a whole set of factors to take into account beyond the content of the page itself.
One of them is the SEO meta description which, as we’ll see shortly, is not a direct ranking factor but still influences ranking indirectly.
To understand what we’re dealing with, let’s start from the basics: what meta descriptions actually are, how to write them well, and how to put them to work for SEO.
Before we begin, a reminder that SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” — everything you do to improve a website’s visibility in search engines.
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SEO meta description: what is it?
The SEO meta description is an HTML attribute that provides a summary of a web page. These are the descriptions you see in the SERP (Google search results) explaining what you’ll find if you click the listing.
Here’s an example of a meta description in HTML:
<head>
<meta name=”description” content=”example of a meta description.”>
</head>
SEO meta description: what is it for?
It summarises the page’s content, describes it, and invites people to visit. It pays to use persuasive, memorable phrasing that earns the user’s trust — and the click.
To get a feel for it, try searching Google for well-known e-commerce brands across different sectors and look at what they write in their meta descriptions.
You need a convincing description that uses the page’s keyword. The job is to persuade the person scanning the SERP that your page is exactly what they were looking for, and that you’re the right people to give them the answer.
It’s worth noting that Google — and search engines generally — show keywords contained in the description in bold, as long as those terms appear in the query (what you type when you search). Having your keyword in bold helps you stand out and therefore gain more visibility.
How do you write an effective SEO description?
Meta descriptions must be unique on every page.
Another important point: don’t put non-alphanumeric or special characters into your HTML meta descriptions, or Google may disregard the page.
And it should go without saying that, as well as being persuasive, the meta description has to be consistent with the text on the page.
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Is there an optimal length?
SEO descriptions often show up truncated or badly rendered. That happens either because they were never filled in, or because the recommended character limit was exceeded.
The optimal meta description tag length is between 50 and 300 characters.
Bear in mind, though, that there’s no single “right” length: what matters is using the space you have to get your message across as well as possible.
Do meta descriptions affect SEO?
The answer is yes — but indirectly.
Back in 2009 Google announced that neither meta descriptions nor meta keywords were included in its ranking algorithms for web search. Even so, meta descriptions can affect a page’s CTR on Google, and that in turn can have a positive effect on where the page ranks.
A few useful SEO tools
- A genuinely useful tool for writing pages with SEO in mind, analysing websites and much more is SEMrush, a paid platform with a wide range of research and analysis features. SEMrush works well beyond Italy, and it’s the natural choice if you’re running international SEO campaigns.
- If your focus is the Italian market instead, try SEOZoom — a platform very similar to SEMrush, but aimed for now at Italy alone.
Conclusion
Writing the SEO meta description properly is just one of the many gears that let a page rank well on Google. We’ve covered plenty of the others in our SEO Academy — you’ll find everything you need to understand how each individual ranking factor works.
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