Here’s How Meta Descriptions Influence SEO Results
Meta description tags are important in SEO, but not in the way that you might think. Previously, meta keywords and meta descriptions used to carry direct and huge algorithmic weight in search engine rankings. As such, they started being used as tools for spamming. This resulted in Google devaluing these tags as direct ranking signals, but their use in the descriptions as short snippets continued.
We, at Nhance Digital, often come across website owners who hugely misunderstood this feature, but using meta descriptions can provide you with the first opportunity to sell your website. It can help you to tell your potential customers or visitors what is in store for them if they decide to visit your website. It is a prime piece of advertising real estate in the search engine results pages and you should use it to your advantage.
A meta description, in HTML, is a 160 character snippet that summarises the content of a webpage. These snippets are displayed by the search engines, along with page headers and titles in search results. This provides visitors with just enough information to convince them to click on the website and enter. If meta descriptions display precise content overviews, bounce rates can be prevented as people will get exactly what they expected before entering a website. To put it simply, meta descriptions gives you the chance to grab the attention and convince searchers to enter your website over your competitors in the same search results page.
If you are wondering whether meta descriptions help with SEO efforts, the answer is yes. However, it does not impact SEO directly. Meta descriptions help in boosting the performance of a website by enhancing the click-through rate, which is a vital ranking factor. Websites that receive a good number of clicks stand a great chance at acquiring a top ranking position in the search results.
Even though meta descriptions do not directly impact rankings, they do affect other aspects of search like, helping the search bots understand what the webpage is about, providing enough information to drive traffic and so on.
So, if you have been ignoring meta descriptions for so long, it is time to wake up. As a revered marketing SEO agency in Glasgow, we can help you create attractive meta descriptions that will attract searchers and drive traffic to your website. Get in touch to know more.