Why are meta descriptions crucial for SEO?

What Length is the Ideal Meta Description?

Google has expanded the length for meta descriptions. They originally recommended that meta descriptions should be one hundred and sixty characters or less, but these days you can go to two hundred and seventy five characters or less. Remember to add your selected keyword naturally into your meta description for the best results.

Why Meta Descriptions are Essential to SEO

Meta descriptions have an impact on your SEO efforts. They act as an organic ad text. This means when your content ranks for a keyword, Google, along with other search engines, show the meta description as a summary of the page. 

It offers the power to improve your click through rate (CTR), meaning the more people seeing your page will click on it, arriving on your web page. The more traffic you have, the longer your audience stays on your site, the higher your ranking can be.

In addition to this, meta descriptions are important when it comes to search engine results pages (SERPs) snippets. This gives you the opportunity to convince more users to be interested in what you offer, clicking on the link and being directed to your website.

When your meta description is well-crafted and aligns with your users search intent, it stands out, helping your audience preview your website, deciding whether to click on it or not. They have a crucial impact on your SEO success, and while meta descriptions are not direct ranking factors, they do play a vital role in boosting CTRs.

How Do Meta Descriptions Impact SEO?

There are a number of ways that meta descriptions impact your SEO efforts:

• Click through rates (CTRs) – A compelling meta description encourages users to click on the link, resulting in higher CTRs, while showing search engines your page is valuable and relevant, positively impacting your ranking on SERPs
• User engagement – when users click on the link and find the content engaging and valuable, it results in positive user signals, such as staying on your site for longer and reducing bounce rates. These are things the search engines take into consideration when evaluating your website content quality
• Relevance – when you add relevant keywords into your meta descriptions, you show search engines what your page is about and why its relevant to the query
• Social media sharing – meta descriptions are often used as the description when your page is shared on social media. With a well-crafted meta description, you increase the chances of visitors clicking the shared links, boosting traffic, while increasing your chances of acquiring backlinks.

Conclusion

While not direct ranking signals, your meta descriptions are crucial to your SEO success. Are you ready to push your business forward in a competitive online setting? Give Genie Crawl a call and let us help you with your on-page SEO today.