What requirements should a Meta Description meet

Hi,

I have setup a website <snip> with Wordpress. I have optimized all pages for SEO, but I am not sure what requirements a meta description should meet.

Can anyone help?

Kind regards,
Yvonne

[FONT=Verdana]Hi Yvonne1981 and welcome to the forums. :slight_smile:

Google provides a great deal of useful information, and has a whole section on meta description:

Remember, each page should have its own unique description.

If you’re new to SEO, you might also want to download their Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.[/FONT]

Hello Technobear,

Thanks, I’m going to read through that information.

Kind regards,
Yvonne

I downloaded pdf for seo tutorials but it was just filled with adds no proper content. suggest any good pdf for seo beginners.

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The one I mentioned above is excellent. Download it from the first link on this page:

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291&ctx=cb&src=cb&cbid=1h0dcl2owc3c2&cbrank=0

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In addition to the above guidelines, remember that there is a limit for number of letters in meta description of any page. It is suggested that google accepts up to 155 letters, yahoo and Bing up to 160 letters.

With the exception of geo data, nothing outside the basic stuff is of much importance for serp ranking these days. With the way Google have been following over the past year or so, it stands to reason that distortion of metadata for seo purposes is pointless at best, or even has a negative influence.

Do not write description for search engine as it will hardly make any difference in ranking. Instead emphasize on writing it to make catchy as this description will be seen in serp and can result in higher ctr if it is catchy.

Hi,

Meta description plays an important role while describing your Website page with Search Engines. However most of the Search Engine accepts Meta description upto 145 characters. So better to limit your Meta Desc. with 145 characters.

Meta description is not so important compared with others. If you’ve finished with all other steps of on page seo, try to write a short description with specified keywords which you want to highlight would be OK.

The idea of writing a meta description is more to do with how you sell your site to a user that has found your result on a search engine, not the actual ranking itself.

It’s a step that many people tend to discount because they forget the human nature of search and how perception is often far more important than SEO.

A description should provide the complete summary of the site in the site/page in the meta description. It should also include one or two keywords of your site that you want to highlight.

<snip>

[FONT=Verdana]A description should be a summary of the page, not the site. As I mentioned above, each page should have its own unique description - because each page should have its own unique content.

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Your meta description shouldn’t be longer than 150 characters. It should sound natural and shouldn’t be crammed with tons of keywords. You should have the 5 keywords or phrases that you’re going for on that page. You should use a different meta description for each page. Your title should also contain all 5 keywords or phrases. Your title should also sound natural.

The “keyword meta tag” lost its SEO importance a while ago; there is no measurable influence on seo any more if you stick it full of keywords.

It should be brief and concise. In general, it should be less than 160 characters. Be sure to add your keywords in the early sentences so as not to miss them. All of the important notes you want your reader to pick up should be there. Remember that it is this description that searchers are going to read first hand in the Google search results.

Following criteria should be followed or kept in mind while writing a meta
Use proper tags or keywords in the meta title which will give proper information about the content of a site
Give proper description to a site page and use unique and different Meta description and Meta Keywords for all pages
Use Proper and relevant descriptions related to the content of the page for which description is written
Do not stuff too many keywords in the meta description tag
Hope this will help you to understand in a better way

As there seems to be nothing new to say about meta description, and the thread is in danger of wandering off into generalities, I’m closing it.