Is it worth writing meta descriptions?

As Michal Pecánek noted in a blog post on Ahrefs, a data-driven marketing toolset powered by a huge index of backlinks, keywords and content, meta descriptions are not a ranking factor but can entice more clicks and lead to more traffic. However, Google does not always use hardcoded meta description and sometimes chooses a different snippet from a web page. To understand how often this happens, Pecánek compared hardcoded meta descriptions with the actual Google desktop snippets for 20,000 keywords. He found that 25.02 percent of top-ranking pages do not have a meta description.

The proportion of URLs without meta descriptions by position ranking included:

Pecánek noted the Spearman correlation was 0.28, which is considered weak. He reported Google rewrites meta descriptions 62.78 percent of the time, based on a study of 192,656 pages ranking in the top 10. The number dropped to 59.65 percent for fat-head and rose to 65.62 percent for long-tails. In other words, Google generates descriptions more often for long-tail keywords. Pecánek wrote that this was based on the fact that the average first-page result ranks for hundreds of keywords, and the hardcoded descriptions are usually written around the primary “head” keyword. As a result, Google shows a hardcoded description in the results for the target keyword, but not for some of the long-tail keywords the post ranks for. This occurs because the hardcoded description is less relevant for the long-tails and it makes more sense for Google to choose its own snippet. While Google is more likely to rewrite meta descriptions for long-tail keywords, it’s only by a small margin. Pecánek said his guess is that the gap will grow over time as Google gets better at understanding search intent and subsequently providing the most relevant search snippets. He noted that the methodology used was not perfect because there was no way to identify fat-heads and long-tails with 100 percent certainty, and passed along a link to the Ahrefs Meta Descriptions Study Methodology for reference. It was also noted that Google is slightly less likely to rewrite meta descriptions that truncate, while truncating meta descriptions that are too long. Data showed that Google rewrote 61.46 percent of meta descriptions that were too long and 63.69 percent of the rest. In other words, keeping meta descriptions within limits does not change the probability of Google rewriting them much. Pecánek reported that 40.61 percent of 192,656 unique pages’ descriptions studied were too long. If you are wondering whether to still bother writing meta descriptions, it was noted that relevant and compelling meta descriptions still entice clicks. This is true even when they are only showing 37 percent of the time, on average. Pecánek recommended to prioritize pages that already get organic traffic, were created to rank in Google, and are likely to get shared on social media (where the meta description will be used for the social snippet description in the absence of OG tags). He said taking this approach should have the most impact for the least amount of work. In a separate blog post about meta descriptions, Neil Patel wrote that there were three reasons you should still use meta descriptions. First, keywords or phrases will be bolded in search results wherever they appear, so your top keyword phrase should be in your SEO title and meta description. He further noted that the top networks use meta descriptions, as do social bookmarking networks. Patel wrote that an often neglected value of meta descriptions is the fact that you can craft your descriptions to be calls to action.

SEO Content in Houston, TX

The content writing team at SERP Matrix can provide you with winning meta descriptions in addition to actual website content. Our team understands the most compelling descriptions of web pages that will be most likely to lead to clicks and then conversions. We will be able to offer detailed keyword analysis that can help target your customers. When we deliver content to you, you will also get suggested meta descriptions that you can count on to accurately summarize your web page in a search engine and also encourage more website visitors. We also handle link building that can incorporate meta descriptions in some cases. Our team will earn you links from only the highest-quality sources, such as educational websites, government websites, video websites, news or journalism-related websites, web directories, RSS directories, blogs, forums, publishers, social media, and membership organizations. A complete audit can be used to discover any HTTP 404 Not Found Errors users encounter when webpages can not be found on the server. Our meta descriptions will lead to additional link possibilities. You can also count on SERP Matrix for assistance with local SEO concerns such as Name, Address, and Phone Number (commonly abbreviated simply as NAP) data. We will make sure that meta descriptions can target highly specific areas and demographics in some cases. We can make sure keywords and locations are incorporated into virtually every element of your website content, including the title tag, header tag, ALT tag (the ALT attribute within in the HTML IMG tag), website or landing page URL, and the actual page content. Our efforts can work together seamlessly to ensure that your meta descriptions are accurately conveying the information on your web page. You can also count on us to help you with search engine submission when you are concerned about display of your meta descriptions. SERP Matrix handles meta descriptions in major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo as well as other popular search engines such as Alexa, AOL, Ask, Baidu, Bing, Dogpile, DuckDuckGo, Internet Archive, Quora, StartPage, Wolframalpha, and Yandex. SERP Matrix offers web design and development services that include work on static websites, dynamic websites, e-commerce websites, corporate websites, small business websites, mobile applications and websites, responsive websites, content management system (CMS) websites, personal websites, government websites, and non-profit organization websites. We know how to make sure that every single page on your website has an accurate and compelling meta description so there is never any issue with search engines incorrectly describing web pages. You can also count on social media marketing and video marketing services from SERP Matrix. Our website has reviews from our customers that you can read as well as information about all of the many other digital services we offer.

Houston Digital Marketing

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Are you struggling to get the right kinds of meta descriptions for your web pages to display in major search engines. When you need help with any kind of online issue, you should not hesitate to contact SERP Matrix. SERP Matrix is an experienced digital marketing agency with a proven track record of success that includes companies from manufacturing, real estate, healthcare, service professionals, auto dealerships, non profits, fashion, retailers to startup businesses with highly focused local clientele. You can have us discuss your specific needs with you and what we can offer as soon as you call (713) 287-1134 or contact us online to set up a free consultation.