Dont Forget About Meta Descriptions When Publishing Posts

byHraybal

1.2K followers

Updated 4 years ago

If there is one thing that is easy to forget to do when posting a new article or review, it is meta descriptions.

Writing an effective meta description should be on your tick list of things to do before hitting the publish button.

Just because using keywords within your meta description doesn't directly help you to rank higher, there is nonetheless very good reason for ensuring the keywords in your post title appear within the description.

Just in case you don't know, the meta description is the wording that appears in the search results just below the title of your post. Search for anything online and you will of course be presented with SERP (search engine result page). In effect this is a list of titles of posts together with a snippet of wording taken from the post.

Now, if the meta description doesn't directly help your post rank better, why would you really be all that concerned about it?

To answer this, it better first explaining what the search engine will do if you don't complete the meta description. The search engine will pick any random snippet from your post and use it as a description.

The problem with this is that the wording it chooses may not necessarily 'sell' your post very well. It may not give a good indication of what your post has to offer in terms of answering the search term a user has just searched for.

On the other hand, if you complete the meta description, the words you use to accurately describe your post, will appear within the SERP.

Not only that, the search engine will highlight in bold the words that are in the title and repeated in the description.

The consequence of this is that your post will stand out more. Think of the meta description as a free advert for what you have written.

The meta description can put emphasis upon the content contained within your post.

Although the description doesn't directly help you rank better, it helps get your post stand out from your competitor's posts.

Users are therefore more likely to click on your post rather than those around it. When users do this the search engines will subsequently rank you higher. So meta descriptions are better for ranking albeit in an indirect way.

Just in case you don't know where you complete your meta description;

When you are creating your post within your back office on WordPress scroll to the bottom of the page where you will see this;

As you can see you are limited to 160 characters. Try to use the maximum amount to increase your exposure, and of course put the words that are in your title in the description as well.

I hope you found this post useful to you.

Ray