What Is A Meta Description?

Date First Published: 15th October 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: SEO

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 5/10

Learn more about what a meta description is in this article.

A meta description is a HTML attribute used to briefly describe a page. This text can appear in the search engine results under the title, so it is an important part of SEO. It is not visible on the webpage, but can be seen in the source code. Even though most search engines automatically choose a relevant section of text from the webpage, it is a good idea to add a meta description tag in case search engines were unable to find a selection of relevant text to use in the search results. An example of a meta description can be seen below:

Meta descriptions can be manually written in a HTML document or when using a CMS, such as WordPress, they can be generated and optimised using SEO tools, such as Yoast SEO, reducing the chances of human errors. Yoast SEO will perform checks on the meta description to ensure that the meta description is of sufficient length and uses keyphrases relevant to the content of the page.

Note:

Adding text to the meta description tag does not guarantee that search engines will display that text in the search results when they index the page. Search engines will use it if they think that it gives searchers a more accurate description than the content of the page. If they don't, search engines will choose a relevant section of text from the content of the page and overrule it.

Tips For Meta Descriptions

The tips below should help you to create good meta descriptions:

• Write an accurate description of the webpage that informs users of what it is about.
• Use a unique meta description tag on each webpage. Identical or very similar meta descriptions are unhelpful when multiple pages appear in the search results.
• Keep the meta description tag of sufficient length of around 50-160 characters. Although there is no specific limit on the length of the meta description, search engines may shorten the meta description when it is over 160 characters.
• Use a meta description that will encourage someone to click on the search result. Especially for the homepage, try and use appealing language, such as 'You can save hundreds of pounds a month by doing this', but don't mislead searchers.
• Do not use a vague meta description tag, such as 'This is a webpage', 'This is an article', or 'Page about web development'.
• Do not copy and paste the entire content of the webpage into the meta description tag.
• Do not fill the meta description tag with only keywords, such as "Web design, Web development, Web developer, Web designer, Web content"
• Do not fill the meta description with text irrelevant to the content of the page. Misleading descriptions can deceive users and cause users to leave the website.
• Avoid using double quotation marks in meta descriptions ("). When Google sees double quotation marks in a meta description, Google recognises them as a signal to shorten the description from that point and automatically cut off the rest of the text from the SERP snippet.