In part 2 of our digital marketing blog series, we discussed the importance of keywords to help strengthen your website’s SEO. In this article, we will cover the meta descriptions for your web pages and how to ensure they’re helping- not hurting, your SEO score.
What is a meta description?
According to Wordstream, a meta description (sometimes called a meta description attribute or tag) is an HTML element that describes and summarizes your page’s contents to users and search engines. This snippet of text may appear in the search engine results under your headline. You can find the meta description on any web page by right-clicking on the page and selecting “view source” or “view page source.”
Search engines claim that meta descriptions do not have a direct impact on SEO. However, meta descriptions boost the click-through rate (CTR) for webpages, signaling to search engines that your page is trustworthy. A strong meta description will boost your SEO score.
Strengthening your meta descriptions.
How long your meta description should be? According to Yoast SEO, a meta description should be around 155 characters to impact your SEO positively.
Meta descriptions are one of the first things people will see when your webpage appears in their search results:
- aim to use an active voice in your writing
- always include a call to action in your writing
It’s a great idea to include the focus keyword you chose for the article in your meta description. This is a creative way to include additional keywords without taking away from your article’s readability score.
Finally, make sure your meta description is unique from the other pages on your site and are already ranking for your targeted topic. Meta descriptions signal to search engines that your content is original, which helps your pages rank higher.
Are you in need of high-quality financial content? Let us help. Reach out to us, and don’t forget to keep an eye on our blog for more tips to jump-start your content marketing strategy.
