Want to know how a copywriter writes a meta description to boost SEO and get organic clicks from search engines?
What Is a Meta Description
A meta description is a short description of what is on that webpage; think of it as a mini excerpt. It works with the page title to give readers more information about what they will find on that page. The information in your meta description will help a reader decide if they want to click onto your webpage or not.
How Long Is a Meta Description?
Google only displays meta descriptions of 155 characters and under (including spaces.) As a good guide, keep your meta description between 120 and 155 characters.
Why Is a Meta Description Important?
Search engines say that bots don’t crawl meta descriptions for keywords. But the way it increases your webpage’s search engine ranking is through the user click-through rate (how many users see your page in the search results and click on it), and the meta description contributes to keyword density in the coding of your webpage.
To understand the importance of the meta description for search engine users, think about how you search for things. You enter a search term into google and then skim through the results. Often, you will read the title and the bold words from your search query in order to see what meta descriptions you want to read.
The more words that are in bold, the more relevant the webpage looks to be, so the more likely you will read the whole meta description and click on the website.
How to Write a Meta Description (Tips From a Copywriter)
If you want to write a meta description that convinces people to read your website, it needs to do 2 things:
- Be compelling
- Have common search keywords
Let’s look at these 2 in closer detail.
How to Write a Compelling Meta Description
In order to make your meta description compelling, you need to convince the reader that the information they are searching for is in your article or webpage. Don’t try to target everyone; target only your ideal customers and include information and keywords that would be of interest to them.
If you are writing a meta description for a blog post, include a brief summary of the information you will cover. For example, this article will have the following meta description:
“Want to know what a meta description is and how to write one? Learn how to write the perfect meta description from a copywriter.”
If you are writing a meta description for a product page, then you want to include keywords your ideal customer may use when searching for a product like yours.
(find example meta description for water bottle)
Do stick to the character limit of 150 characters (including spaces). If you go over this limit, everything over 150 characters will get cut off. Think of ways to shorten your meta description or different ways to say things in order to make it fit.
Keyword Research For Meta Descriptions
When researching keywords for meta descriptions, throw everything you know about SEO keyword research out of the window. You need to pick common search terms for your ideal customer, not find the sweet spot between traffic and competition. The keywords in your meta description are less about ranking in the search engine results and more about getting parts of your meta description highlighted in bold. Therefore, you need to include keywords that your ideal customers use in their search queries. To do this, you need to do the following where appropriate:
- Use slang
- Use regional words
- Use generational terms
- Drop the jargon (unless your ideal customer uses it)
The more that is highlighted in bold in your meta description, the more likely the customer will stop and consider your webpage.