#SOCIAL MEDIA META GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS CODE#

It is reasonable to think that most people will look at the title first and, if it is interesting enough, the meta description underneath. When someone does a search and sees a list of pages, the odds are pretty good that the keyword phrase or some variation of it will appear in the title and again in the meta description. Writing a good meta description starts with defining a keyword phrase (two to three words or more) that best fits the document title and content of the page itself. Note that the description has not been cut off and is limited to one sentence, although two shorter sentence also are possible. The above example shows three tactics to emphasize relevance - “western caribbean weather” in the title, the URL and again at the beginning of the description.Įach use of the keyword phrase has been bolded by Google to make the search engine visitor more likely to see that this result has matched the phrase that he or she entered in the search box. If an important and relevant part of the description lies beyond character number 155, the searcher won’t see it and will be less likely to click on that link and more likely to click on another.Įven if it is the right length, poor word usage or the lack of a good keyword phrase can further reduce results. Not only will they be more easily noticed, they also won’t fall victim to being cut off.

Place the keywords as close to the start of the description as possible. It is the likelihood of the searcher not clicking on the link if certain important keywords are cut off. The reason why a long description can impact search engine results is not so much the ranking of the page in the search engine results.

The descriptions come from one of two sources - either the description tag or, if the page doesn’t have one, a snippet of relevant content from the page.įor pages with meta description content longer than about 155 characters, the search engines cut off the display of the description with an ellipses (…). Scroll down the page and look at each description. Go to Google, Yahoo! and Bing and do a test search. It usually goes in the document after the tags and before the meta keywords tag.

The meta description is a slice of HTML code that is placed within the section of a web page. High click rates and strong engagement with the landing page send a positive signal to search engines which in turn will increase the rank.Īn overly long description will get cut off and lose click potential if critical keywords drop from view. What affects the results is the way the searcher reads and reacts to the meta description. Otherwise, they will create their own from snippets within the linked article. They simply display it in their own search results when they think it is relevant. Search engines may not rank a page higher because of a well-written meta description. The searcher looks at the title first for an answer and then the meta description - if necessary - for more information. The title of course is more prominent than the meta description. The first priority for both is the title. Think about search engine behavior and search user behavior. It’s also very much about getting the click.

Meta description is more than just limiting the content to less than 155 characters. Obviously, count every character and cut it down to 155 or less.Write it like an ad, but don’t oversell.Put the most important keywords at the beginning.5 Best Practicesįive simple practices produce effective meta descriptions that will boost click-through rates from search engines. Best practices suggest a balance between the two ideals - information and clickability. A brief one is appealing to searchers if it either gives them the answer to their question or points them to the site that has the answers. Ideally, an informative meta description is appealing to search engines. Search engines want to give them those answers in the meta description so that they don’t click off to a site. Meta description length can impact search engine results as well as how often searchers click.Īlthough search engines may use up to 155-160 characters, it doesn’t mean website publishers should write meta descriptions that long.

#SOCIAL MEDIA META GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS CODE#

Social media meta google search results