This is one of the most common misfortunes in SEO, and many times it's out of our control. If your meta description is deemed too long for Google's liking, it may get cut off, and the tail end of a sentence can get replaced with an ellipsis " Remember, characters including spaces or less is best.
For every blog, webpage, and piece of copy we write, we follow the best practice of creating a corresponding meta description. Now that you know why you should write a meta description, here's the how. Write a short sentence previewing the content or telling the searcher why they should read your post. Give them a clear benefit of clicking through and reading your post, if necessary. This is your chance to sell them on what you have to offer: informative, valuable content.
You might already include keywords in a webpage's body copy and title. But the meta description should also include keywords that help describe the content of the webpage.
Focus on one or two unique keywords in the meta description of each webpage you publish. Don't stuff these keywords anywhere you can -- make sure they fit naturally and help explain what people can expect to see if they click on your link. I know I said the number of characters that make up your meta description is important, and it is.
But when actually displaying this meta data, Google doesn't measure by characters -- it measures by pixels. That is, it'll cut off a meta description after a certain width.
The reason we say characters is to give marketers a benchmark to abide by. These are known as "non-alphanumeric" characters, and you should avoid using them in your meta descriptions. Some of them don't appear in search results the way you intend for them to. Others can ruin the entire snippet: Any time double quotation marks are used in a meta description, for instance, Google removes it from the search result.
To sum up the makings of a truly powerful meta descriptions, I'll leave the final words to Google :. Because the meta descriptions aren't displayed in the pages the user sees, it's easy to let this content slide. But high-quality descriptions can be displayed in Google's search results, and can go a long way to improving the quality and quantity of your search traffic.
As I get older -- and wiser, hopefully -- I find there is an exception to every rule. Meta descriptions are no different. As I've noted above, conventional logic agrees it's wise to write a good meta description for any given page. But for webpages that are targeting three or more major keywords, according to Moz , your best bet might be to let Google's artificial intelligence extract the text it thinks is most relevant for a meta description.
After all, you can't address all three keywords in the same meta description, and there is always some risk that Google doesn't care what you put in your content management system 's meta description box.
If you have a page that lists several articles think a blog or newsletter archive, or something like "your cart" if you're ecommerce , it might be okay to forego the meta description. When in doubt, spend time writing an engaging sentence or two, and feel confident the right people will find the right information from you, at the right time. Originally published Mar 13, PM, updated March 14 Logo - Full Color. Contact Sales. Overview of all products.
Marketing Hub Marketing automation software. Service Hub Customer service software. CMS Hub Content management system software. The meta description is text that describes a page and it is usually shown as a snippet in the search results.
The meta description tag is hidden on the page so normal users cannot see it while browsing a webpage but search engine crawlers can read the value and might use it for creating the search snippets. We analyzed a number of Google search results on both desktop and mobile and we found out that there is a difference in the meta description length on desktop and mobile.
Someone might have expected that the desktop meta description is longer than mobile, but it is actually the opposite. While the mobile screen is smaller in width, Google is allocating more height for each search snippet and as a result it allows for longer meta descriptions. The meta description length for Google desktop search results is between characters. As you can see below, most search snippets have — characters with the exception of our snippet which goes up to characters!
The ideal meta description length for Google mobile search results is between and characters. For exactly the same results on mobile, Google shows longer descriptions. As you can see below, the length is between and characters. Why is this finding important? Since the majority of the traffic is coming from mobile devices, you should optimize your meta descriptions for mobile. This means you should write meta descriptions that are between and characters and not up-to characters that was the standard until now for desktop.
Optimizing the meta description length for Bing, is a totally different story. For some queries it does not show the meta description at all but it shows parts of the page content and for others it shows too short or too long descriptions.
What we found out after making several tests and you can do the same , is that the meta description length varies depending on the search terms used, device, location and search history. One thing is certain though, search engines and in particular Google do show more than characters in the meta description field, especially in the case of rich snippets.
So, to take advantage of all the available real estate and make your snippets stand out, my recommendation is to write meta descriptions that are between and characters. Another thing you can do highly recommended is to search for your target keywords on Google and examine the first page of the results.
In fact, the search engine returned to the length it was during The meta description length has not changed. It was possible to write the text up to symbols but only symbols were displayed. Tails of long meta descriptions were hidden by an ellipsis in search results. This is why SEO specialists tried to include all the important keywords at the beginning of the meta description. Reduction of the length to symbols with spaces caused the rush of indignation from SEO specialists.
A lot of them wrote on Twitter that they wanted precise guidelines from Google on meta tags. However, Danny Sullivan made it clear that the search engine does not want webmasters to be obsessed with numbers; it wants site owners to create quality content and to concisely describe it for users. Google has never concealed that the meta description is generated according to searches.
That is why instead of preparing the text in advance, Google displays parts of the text directly from webpages. So, what is the length of meta description in SEO today? Since the previous year, nothing has changed. The displayed meta description length varies within the following values:. SEO specialists usually trace the optimum parameters for desktop search results in the service RankRanger.
As before, the actual meta description length can surpass recommended values. However, there is no sense to intentionally increase a text that will be inevitably cut.
The search engine can also perceive such descriptions as spam and will negatively impact the rating of the resource. As a result, the CTR value will decrease. This leads to a decrease in the average rating.
If your text is a couple of characters longer than symbols, do not waste your time on shortening. Rather take care of other important aspects that should be taken into consideration while writing meta descriptions. If you take note of all the recommendations from Google and take into account all the guidelines provided during filling in of the snippet Yoast SEO in WordPress, it is possible to make a list of criteria of an ideal meta description.
The structure of the optimum meta description is the following:. The ideal meta description length is symbols with spaces. Let us consider several examples of quality meta descriptions. In this example, the length is precisely symbols with spaces, there are keywords, the brand name, and a very concise description of the company activity. Even though there is no specific call-to-action, it is clear who the target audience of this selling proposition is. Uber webmasters have managed to squeeze in keywords, range of services the company provides, and a call-to-action in just characters.
These are the two examples of ineffective meta descriptions. Even though the meta description is completely included in the snippet, simply mentioning the cities or keywords is not one of the meta description best practices. It is an illustrative example of how Google has taken the information from the site to generate the snippet based on the search. As a result, this is not a description but a list of phrases and fragments.
Before adding meta tags, you can check if they are going to be displayed correctly in the search results. You can do this by using special tools. Fill in all the fields and you will immediately see the results. To the Web. This is a free tool that not only helps to see how the snippet is going to be displayed but also provides brief feedback on every meta tag. If it meets the optimum parameters, it should be modified.
Meta Length Checker.
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