The page description is part of the meta tags found in the <head> of an html page.
<meta name=”DESCRIPTION” content=”Description goes here”>
Now that you have a good list of keywords — or at least an excellent beginning list — it is time to work on your page descriptions. There is much that is said about how to write these descriptions. Below is my short list of key principles for generating a description.
- Make sure the description describes the page content.
- Use your keywords.
- Keep the description around 160 characters.
- Each page should have a unique description.
- Remember your description is actually an ad.
1. Make sure the description describes the page content.
First and foremost the description needs to describe the page. If this seems pretty obvious, then you are on the right track. Unfortunately, many folks believe the prime purpose of the description is to do something tricky about search engine optimization.
Yes it is true that we want to do SEO. But, that comes second. The first order of business is to make sure the description functions to describe the page.
2. Use your keywords.
Make sure that your description is keyword rich. It is best if the first few words of the description are keywords. Basically make sure that you avail yourself of every opportunity to use keywords that you can — provided that you don’t detract from the functionality of the description as a description.
3. Keep the description around 160 characters.
Apparently it is allowed to have descriptions of pretty much any length. However, if you look at Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) you will notice that they cut off the description at 160 characters. So that would seem to be to be a nice target length for a description.
Do a few google searches. Look at the results page. Visually appraise the different entries on the page. Count the length of descriptions that you like the length of. Shoot for that length in your description.
4. Each page should have a unique description.
This goes back to googles primary goal of providing search results that point to quality content that is on target with the posted search query.
When viewing the search results the primary three pieces of information provided to the searcher are your page url, the page title, and the page description. Searchers will use your page descriptions in order to determine which of your pages are most on target with their search query.
So make the descriptions unique. The pages are unique aren’t they? LoL gotcha. In case, you didn’t know it, you will be penalized for duplicating content on your pages. How much of a penalty is open for discussion. But google has definitely gone on record saying they don’t like. This will usually translate into reduction in page ranking.
5. Remember your description is actually an ad.
As mentioned above, your description will appear in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Thus, there will come a moment when the description for your page will appear alongside the descriptions of several other pages. In this moment you are competing for the attention of the searcher. So be seductive. Put some punch and wow in the description.
Conclusions
If you have genuine content, the above rules should help you to generate descriptions that serve your pages well.