So you’ve been working hard at re-writing your copy to be naturally optimized for the search engines, and finally got listed in the search results; but how can you boost it to the front page? Ask yourself this question, “does your description really summarize what this page is about in (150 characters), or are you seeing a bizarre bunch of words that make no sense to the overall picture of the page.”

Sample of a bad meta description

Many site owners overlook this very important element to their website. The meta description is important as it allows search engines like Google to either utilize a well written meta description written by you or it will take snippets of your copy – this is why it is important to have relevant keyword terms either placed in your description, or strategically placed on your website – but remember it must be end-user friendly and make sense to the visitor of your site.

Take control of this process. Review each of your site pages and give your developer the wording that you feel best suited for that page. A lazy developer may just automate this process by using the same description on every page.

Summary:

• Each page should have its own unique description
• No precise rule, but best to keep to no more than 150 characters in length
• Utilize keyword phrase and relevant keyword phrase for the word you are trying to optimize from the page in your description
• This is what the code should look like in the page source; META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”informative description here”
• If you don’t have time to do all pages, the very least, create a description for the critical URLs