A Meta Description's overall purpose is to provide a brief explanation of a site and most importantly, to name the major items being sold. It can help rankings in search engines in providing more relevance to a site by giving spiders an accurate summary of its place on the net. As the words imply, a Meta Title names a site while a Meta Description describes the page to search engines and directories. In general, the Description can be considered a lengthened extension of the Title.
Writing Your Meta Description
When forming your Description, use common sense, logic and a touch of creative writing. If you haven't done so already, create your Meta Title first. Once you have the keywords and text used there, you can use that information to help in writing your Description.
The text amount should not surpass 150 words. It is meant to be a short rundown of your site, so keep it concise and to the point.
Most importantly- include major keywords in your description. There is more room in the Description tag, so include more keywords. Make certain they are specific, relevant and pertinent to the major items you sale. Always place your top keywords first within the text.
Avoid spam. Repeating keywords (more than 5 times) in your Meta Description may be viewed negatively by search engine spiders.
The Description is used as the summary in some search engine listings. So while keeping the text as relevant as possible, also make it inviting to potential customers. If a search engine uses a Meta Description and you don't have one, it will pull random text from your page. This can confuse visitors and may result in a lost visit to your site. Make sure you have Descriptions that educate, rather than confuse.
Include Meta Descriptions in all areas of your site. It is important for a site's homepage, as well as each Product and Category page. For these specific pages, try to keep the Description at about 50 words, roughly 2-3 sentences long.
Once you are finished writing, check your text from an outside perspective. Make sure it describes your site's overall purpose, products and entices you to go inside.
Stacie completed the Texas Creative program, receiving a degree in Advertising from the University of Texas at Austin and is now happily employed with Volusion, Inc.
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