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    Best Practice Guide Meta Descriptions

  • hello@pixelsource.co.uk
  • October 15, 2016
  • Website Design
  • 0 Comments

    You may or may not have heard the term "Meta Desciption" before?, if you have dealt with a reputable design agency like pixelsource then they would of spoken to you about them.

    MYTH BUSTER:

    Meta Descriptions do not and will not ever have an impact on SEO rankings,that is pretty obvious as Google would not be able to serve up reputable results.

    SO WHAT ARE THEY?

    Each web page on your site will/can have a meta description that can be added to the HTML markup of each page, note you can only have one meta description on each page.Whether you are using a system such as wordpress or an ecommerce platform such as Magento, they all have a facility to update meta descriptions for pages and/or products.

    You can see from the example below clearly what the user will see when they click on the link.

    WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT?

    Meta descriptions are vital, they provide a potential visitor to your website with a quick snapshot of what the page contains before they click on it, so essentially it is a teaser, a set or words or a phrase that entices a visitor to click on your link and visit the page.

    AVOID DUPLICATES AT ALL COSTS

    It is vital that you do not have duplicate meta descriptions, pages that are similar shouldn't even have duplicate meta descriptions.Take your time and get the page description right.

    RECOMMENDED LENGTH

    As with alot of procedures there are character length guidelines in place, if you can keep your description to between 150-160 characters then that is great, but don't get to hung up on the length, make the description natural for the user to read.

    ONCE YOU HAVE UPDATED THEM, WHAT NEXT?

    Once you have updated your meta description(s) on your page(s), then the next step is real easy, simply submit your website back to Google for a re-index. They are pretty quick at updating their index these days so you could see your updated changes within the search results within 24hrs.

    WORD OF WARNING

    Google still has the right to whether or not to show your meta description.If they think that their is keyword stuffing or general naughtiness going on then they will decide what your meta description will be and it may not be pretty, worst case scenario is that they add a manual action to your website which could see you plummet down the rankings.

    If you are still unsure about meta descriptions, then please feel free to call Pixelsource on 0191 4234251, or reach out to us through email via our contact page.

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