How To Add A Meta Description In Html

This article will embrace everything you need to know nearly the basics of meta descriptions. We volition talk about what they are, why they are of import, and how to leverage them for your website's SEO.

A meta description is an HTML tag used to depict the content of a spider web page. This description volition evidence up below the championship and URL of your folio as information technology appears in the search engine results. In order to remain visible within Google, your meta clarification should be kept somewhere between 140-160 characters.

A meta clarification for this weblog mail service could be:

"When writing a meta clarification, keep it between 140 and 160 characters and then Google can display your entire message. Don't forget to include your keyword!"

Here'south an case of how that meta clarification appears on Google's SERP:

Hither's an example of how that meta clarification looks in the page's code:

Since meta descriptions appear with your title and URL on the results pages, they accept the power to help or injure your results' click through rates.

In terms of your search result, your meta clarification has the about real manor (ii lines of text compared to ane line for the title and one line for URL), and then take advantage of the opportunity to sell your website with a meaningful message to searchers.

Since the click-through rate on the SERPs is seen as a potential ranking factor, the best way to brand your meta descriptions SEO-friendly is to write them with the intention of getting more clicks.

Think of your search results like a traditional advertizement in a paper or mag. Classic impress advertising used headlines and taglines to entice a person to call a phone number or travel to an address to buy a production in-store.

With your search results, your page title is your headline, your meta description is your tagline, and the URL is the address. Since a meta description is substantially a micro-pitch for a webpage, yous should fill up information technology with agile language that will make people want to click on your result.

Tip #1: Include Your Unique Selling Betoken

Yous desire to write a description that conveys your website's unique selling signal (USP).

Retrieve: why is my folio specifically better than all the other pages in the results?

Don't be afraid to make an emotional entreatment with your bulletin. Emotional advertising has traditionally constitute a lot of success borer into people's feelings.

Let's look at an example:

From this simple description in the SERP, nosotros come across this visitor can repair and install air-conditioning (a needed service in Florida). More importantly, they "provide comfort and trusted advice when people need it well-nigh" — imagine your A/C is broke while sweating in a hot and boiling surface area. Who do you trust?

A study in 2014 conducted past the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Glasgow suggested that human being emotion can be categorized into four main buckets:

Happy
Sorry
Angry/disgusted
Afraid/surprised

This company used emotion the right way to pull in potential customers. Very smart.

Tip #2: Appeal to an Emotion in 1-2 Sentences

Google gives room for about a 1-ii sentence (160-grapheme) summary below every search result. And then, in one to 2 sentences, your descriptions should offering a compelling reason to visit the webpage. Add a clear call to action, address an emotional hurting point, or offering a specific benefit to visitors.

If it is besides long, information technology won't fit, Google will truncate it, and people volition not understand what your site tin provide.
If it is too vague, people just won't care. There are always other results to click on.

You should aim to connect with a searcher's emotion in 2 sentences or less.

As one of the more important SEO nuts, meta descriptions can assistance make your pages more than relevant. It is besides important to have unique descriptions for every page on your website. Our on-site SEO study found that nearly 30% of the sites had duplicate meta descriptions and 25% had pages with no meta description at all.

To encourage clicks and bring visitors from search to your website, do the following with your descriptions:

Aim for about 1-ii sentences (140-160 characters) long
Include your target keyword
Target an emotion
Add a telephone call-to-action to entice opening the link
Avoid duplicate meta descriptions
Make it meaningful and descriptive, matching your content
Double cheque how it looks with a SERP view generator tool

You can besides bank check out the newest Google'southward recommendations - Ameliorate Snippets for your Users.

How-To-Write-a Perfect- Meta-Description.pdf

Download this checklist!

Using Multiple Meta Descriptions for a Unmarried Page

In May of 2020, Google's John Mueller answered a question about using multiple meta descriptions. He said, "And then, if yous're including a second meta description tag on a folio we will treat that the aforementioned as if you only extend the existing meta tag on the folio... there's no kind of bonus to using a 2d meta clarification tag on a page compared to just adjusting your existing one."

SEJ reported that John Mueller stated Google can handle extra title and meta descriptions, merely that publishers should stick to writing a single meta description and a unmarried championship tag per page.

Mostly speaking, you volition find that most pages will only take 1 meta description and that instances of multiple meta clarification tags are by and large down to human being fault.

Withal, in some instances, multiple meta description tags are used deliberately. The reason for this is to give a search engine additional options when it comes to displaying meta information that matches a user's search query.

Purposefully Using Multiple Meta Descriptions

The aim of their use is to friction match the search engine queries with an appropriate meta description tag, which in turn could help improve the click-through charge per unit.

For case, at Semrush we might build a post that explores the various aspects of keyword research. Within this postal service we might look to target the following search terms:

"What is keyword research"
"Keyword research tools"

Naturally, these have two significantly dissimilar search intents but are inherently related to 1 another. The thought of having multiple meta descriptions is then to arts and crafts two separate descriptions that relate to each phrase.

Therefore, if a user queries "what is keyword enquiry" search engines would display our result with the meta description tailored to the "what is keyword research" search query. Equally, if a user was to search for "keyword inquiry tools", the second tailored meta description would maybe be displayed.

It is worth noting that at that place is no guarantee that a search engine will adhere to picking your desired meta description so it is at your own take chances to implement multiple descriptions.

How To Implement Multiple Meta Descriptions

The meta description is institute in a page's HTML source then, therefore, adding an actress meta description to a page is dependent on the application you use to build the website.

To add multiple meta descriptions, y'all need access to the HTML pages of your site and the power to edit and amend them.

A meta description tag is required to sit between the head tags in the HTML code, and for best exercise, below the title tag of the folio. For example:

<head> <title>Title of the folio</championship> <meta name="description" content="Enter clarification here."> </head>

This will add ane meta description to your page. In social club to add multiple, yous must repeat this procedure, adding a second meta description betwixt the <caput> tags. This would appear every bit follows:

<head> <title>Title of the folio</title> <meta name="clarification" content="Enter clarification i."> <meta proper name="clarification" content="Enter description two."> </head>

To maximize the effectiveness of multiple meta descriptions, they should reflect the search intent of the highest volume keywords the pages rank for or are trying to rank for. This will and then give search engines the opportunity to select the about relevant meta clarification for the user's search.

Should You Use Multiple Meta Descriptions?

Unless y'all are purposefully trying to influence the search engine results every bit outlined above, then information technology's mostly considered best practice to merely include ane meta clarification for each post created.

Inside a page that you lot are optimizing you should include your target topics & keywords, whilst too ensuring the content is 100% unique and satisfies the user intent of the superlative queries you are trying to rank for.

Below are some helpful tools that you lot can use to test your meta descriptions as you write them.

Semrush Site Inspect — This tool analyzes the wellness of a website. It will provide you lot with a list of issues that makes it easy to see where exactly a website is struggling, including missing and duplicate meta descriptions:

Semrush On-Page SEO Checker – This Semrush Project tool checks if you have a keyword in your championship and meta tag and suggests the right i if you don't. Too, check the detailed analysis for keyword usage info in meta descriptions. On-Page SEO Checker also provides you with a detailed listing of actionable, tailor-made on-folio optimization tips for each page of your website.

Portent – This SERP view generator lets you enter your meta description along with a title and URL to examination how your search result will appear. You can check the pixel width of your championship, the character length of your description, and test how different keywords within your clarification volition look when bolded.

For more on-page SEO help, exist sure to read our on-folio SEO checklist.