The summary of any piece of writing is a meta description. It’s a very concise version of what you have written in your blog, article, or any document. Actually, reaching out to maximum online traffic requires clicks and the audience will do so if it finds something useful or valuable.
Besides, Google bots actually exactly draw the idea of what your content conveys. It is where this description proves handy. You can easily spot it under the Page Title on SERPs.
156 to 160 Characters Limit
Any strategy of digital marketing nails it if it briefs what your content states in just 156 characters.
Yes! You have only 156 characters to brief all important aspects that your blog or article covers. No matter how long the content is. Its meta description should be 156-character long.
It’s a big challenge to push users for clicking the link. A title with a touch-point and description having pain points or responses to them can bring their precious clicks in outnumbers.
In short, optimizing your meta description is a must.
Tips to Optimise Meta Descriptions to Maximize Clicks
Here are the tricks to optimisemeta descriptions for overwhelming clicks.
• Understand What Top Ranking Posts Have in Meta Data
A thorough examination will reveal some very interesting facts.
Google actually decides on its own what to appear in the description. However, it provides a schema design option to follow and describe what you want to display in the information graph on the SERPS.
The SEO experts or digital marketers use a rich snippet from the page for this description. It is so because sometimes a detailed HTML tag does not accurately summarise the content.
The digital marketing services providers can easily trace this case through the description ending with …….. (ellipsis). It indicates that there is more to explore through clicking. And interestingly, what appears there may be less than the aforesaid word limit (i.e. 156-characters).
So, if you want to show specifically written metadata (as happens in the case of WordPress blogs), concise information is valuable and described in the body of the content. Fit it within 156 characters.
• How to Fit Info in 156 Characters
Here, consider why the searcher would click.
Then, determine the targeted keywords that you have covered in the article or blog. Include them because your target audience wants the response or information associated with the keyword.
Think about why your audience would search for this topic. First, identify the targeted keywords for the article – this helps you understand who the target search audience is and what it wants to explore.
Whatever you write, ensure that it has the answer of the topic (that your audience wants to read for finding an appropriate response to their pain points or queries.)
No matter how you explain it. What actually vital is your connectivity with the right audience. Writing a technical description will inspire a specific audience whose count would be limited.
Let’s say, “Discover data migration, managed IT services, cloud or server installation, instance management, tracking, etc. for better and continuous business operations.”
On the flip side, the description addressing a general audience can be more impressive and push laymen to click and see what’s inside. Ensure that it has the searcher’s intent. (Certainly, it would be the title that is selected for informing general users.)
For example, “Discover how easy it is to store data from one system to another, information security & privacy maintenance, reporting, etc. for your business operations.”
This is more general in sense and has all in brief that the managed IT services include. Not only businesses but also a common man can easily
• Have the Primary Keyword in the Title & SEO Title
The digital marketing services companies strictly follow the guidelines, especially the keyword density that is restricted to 3% to 4% in the body of the content. It’s true.
But, the meta description is to inform the audience about the values that you offer through that blog or article. Sometimes, the SEO guidelines do not allow you to repeat the primary keyword, as it may exceed the limit.
To be very frank, avoid this norm. This description offers you a crucial attempt to inform people. Missing that keyword may cause a big loss in the number of clicks. So, always consider it to be included even if its use violates the SEO guidelines.
• Two Ways to Attract Clicks
The whole sole purpose of this brief is to attract clicks. You may easily achieve this goal in these two ways:
• Draft it in an answering manner (of the pain-point in the title)
• Create curiosity to push readers for reading the full article or blog.
Let me make it easier to choose either of them.
Consider the first option if you want your audience to explore the entire article and find the answer to what he wants to seek.
Selecting the second option would be good if only the click rate matters for you, but not the bounce rate.
There is a third and very effective approach, which ensures combining these two alternatives together. Simply put, brief the article in such a way that it has the answer and the audience would have more to explore if they read.
• Consider Brand or Company Name or Not?
Here, one substantial fact is brand recognition. If it’s a well-known name, go ahead and use it in the description. Your brand’s credibility will improve this way.
The brands like GOOGLE, APPLE INC., etc. may use their names in it. But, this would be feasible for brand-specific blogs or articles. If you want to educate people about anything other than what that brand serves, it won’t be the best fit for digital marketing strategy.
There is another downside to using such names. The limit of characters won’t allow you to create a valuable & informative headline. It can occupy space that limits you to creating a title whose searches are way more than that of your brand name’s searches.
• Keep it Grammatically Correct
A few digital marketing services providing companies or SEO experts avoid punctuations. The practice of utilizing every single space pushes them to do so.
It’s a completely wrong strategy. Don’t do so. The audience thoroughly reads and understands the context. A missing dot in a sentence can convey a different meaning. Be aware of this fact.
Moreover, the punctuation creates a scope for introducing more valuable information (which may be scattered in the blog or content) in a sentence.
For instance, “Discover the best fit digital marketing services, covering SEO, SMM, SEM, content marketing, programme marketing, online reputation management, and more.”
Your content may have digital marketing services in detail. Here in the summary, you can use the key terms in a sentence wisely (as the aforesaid example shows).
• What to Avoid?
You have to enrich your meta descriptions with value-offering and curiosity-triggering words.
Avoid the following:
• First-person references
• Weasel words
• Qualifiers
• Intensifiers
• Prepositions
• Passive phrases
These tips can help you to optimisemeta descriptions for any content.
Summary
The tips to optimize meta descriptions that digital marketing services providers use cover searchers’ intent, SEO title, primary keywords, 156-character limit, the strategy to inform or stimulate curiosity, include or omit the brand name, and some more vital points. Discover more about the meta description strategy.
