The meta description is a short text that appears in the search results below the URL. It serves as a preview of the page content and is intended to encourage users to click on the search result.
Importance of SEO
A compelling meta description increases the click-through rate (CTR): A higher click-through rate means more traffic and potentially more customers.
Features of a good meta description
- Get interested instead of just listing content.
- Contains relevant keywords that naturally pick up the search term.
- Has the right length: optimal is 150 to 160 characters, because longer texts are cut off.
- Contains a call-to-action that prompts you to click.
Recommendations
The meta description should be formulated target-oriented, summarize the page content concisely, integrate keywords naturally, be actively formulated and stand out from the competition. In common content management systems such as WordPress, Wix or Shopify, it can usually be entered in the SEO settings without programming knowledge.
Frequent errors
If a meta description is missing, Google automatically selects a text section of the page – often without optimization. Other common mistakes are an inappropriate length, lack of thematic reference to the page content and little appealing formulations.