Google On Meta Descriptions: Recommendations By Google
The recent tutorial on creating meta descriptions by Google is no less than a Bible for SEOs. Google states how it wants the metas to be written and why writing meta is important. The recommendations were expected with closure of DMOZ web directory.
DMOZ
It was a source of information for Google. DMOZ was a web directory Google relied for info in websites. Whenever Google encountered sites without meta descriptions, it moved to DMOZ to find info on those sites. With DMOZ closed, Google wants the SEOs to write meta descriptions and it is ready to help SEOs in writing good metas.
Why Google needs meta description?
When you search info on Google, it draws web pages relevant to the search intent from its database. It looks web page content to determine relevancy of the web pages with the search query but if it doesn’t find web page content matching with search, it moves to meta descriptions. Here it is clear that meta descriptions are most important constituents of web pages.
Precautions with meta-writing
The most common problem with meta writing is not writing metas on web pages. The second biggest problem is using one meta description for all ages and the third issue is writing spammy or off-topic descriptions that doesn’t give reliable info on the web pages. It isn’t that SEOs don’t want to write good metas but they need education on how to write quality meta descriptions.
What Google says about writing meta description?
SEOs try limiting characters for meta descriptions but Google is silent on this topic. It doesn’t mention any character limit in its guidelines for writing meta description. What it says is that the metas can be truncated to fit into the size determined by the size of the device the web page is viewed on. For instance, a webpage would be displayed with its full meta description on desktops than on a tablet.
What meta can do for a web page?
Google looks for info to display in snippets but it wants to serve relevant info. It first looks at the web page content for info and then looks at the meta description that is manually written using keywords. Writing good meta can help in SEO in the long run and there shouldn’t be any problem in writing meta descriptions. The SEOs only need taking care of spelling mistakes, grammar, flow and keywords.
How to write good meta description?
Keep the meta description brief but provide complete info in simple language. Use keywords to help Google find your webpage and understand the info provided. But avoid stuffing keywords. Maintain relevancy of the info provided with the keywords in meta description.
Conclusion
By providing guidelines on meta descriptions, Google is doing its job. It is the largest search engine and SEOs rely on Google more than any other platform on the web for marketing, promotion and traffic. SEOs can take lessons from the recent recommendations by Google and try writing good meta descriptions for their webpages.
