Top 10 SEO Copywriting Tips to Ranking Success: Tip #3 — Writing the Description Tag
By Roberta Rosenberg on Feb 13, 2007 in SEO Copy Tips & Tools
Ok, so we’ve covered the importance of crafting the right title tag for each of your pages and we’ve covered a few good steps toward identifying relevant keyword phrases and crafting your site keyword phrase glossary which will be used to write the page titles and page content.
As I’m sure you’ve already surmised by now, we use the glossary to write the meta description tags. Here’s the HTML code and syntax:
<meta name="description" content="1-2 descriptive sentences here" />
It’s placed between the <head> and </head> section of a web page. Some folks will tell you the order doesn’t matter, but since I like to prioritize by importance, I like it placed after the title tag and before the meta keyword tag.
Let’s talk a little about why they’re important.
Relevance for the prospect, marketing vehicle for you or your client
In the “old” days prior to 2004 or so, well-written, keyword-rich, description tags would give your site a boost in the rankings. That’s doesn’t appear to be the case much anymore. But it’s importance to your prospective site visitors as they review the SERPS (search engine results pages) is major.
Why? Because it’s the meta description tag text that appears under the title in the SE’s list of results. This is the copy that tells the human reader what your page is all about.
Your reader is going to quickly decide, “Yes, that’s what I’m looking for!” or “Nope, this ain’t it.” based in large part on what your description tag says.
Without the tag, Google and the rest will pick off pieces of relevant content from the web page itself. Sometimes that could even mean the site navigation labels.
Now that’s a waste of everyone’s time. It looks awkward and reflects badly on the site because it doesn’t provide a whit of useful information. So what happens? Your hot prospect simply moves to the next site on the list. (Roberta’s Rule – never waste a prospective visitor’s time.)
Here are a full rules of thumb for writing and formatting this tag:
- Try to limit it to 170 characters or 200 characters at most.
- Write one or two concise and keyword-rich sentences that provide a strong content summary of the page. (Please, please, please, don’t just dump in a string of keywords, no matter how relevant they may be.)
- Don’t strive for clever, you want direct and straightforward. (Take a look at the DMOZ guide to writing descriptions for a solid approach.)
- Don’t worry about redundancy. Feel free to start your description using those same keyword phrases from your title tag. Fill in using material from the first sentence of your page’s content. Revise as needed.)
- In contrast, don’t repeat the same words within the description tag. Use that word-stemming idea I gave you in SEO Copywriting Tip #2 , as well as present/past tense verb forms — but don’t forget to make sure it reads like conversational English.
- Bonus: Great description tags can be used as-is when you’re submitting to site and blog directories. Just copy, paste and click.
Maven’s Maxim
Think of your description tag as marketing copy but without the heavy promotional slant. Just tell ‘em, don’t sell ‘em — and tell ”em in one or two sentences.
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Suzan St Maur | Feb 14, 2007 | Reply
As you have an expert’s interest in business writing, would you like to review one or both of my eBooks?
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and
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