Meta descriptions are an important tool for SEO marketers as they help establish your prominence in SERPs. While it may sound like some sort of obscure coding term, meta descriptions are extremely relevant to affiliates and can have a huge impact on the SEO of your site.
We look at the importance of meta descriptions and discuss what you need to know about writing them correctly in your affiliate marketing business.
What Is A Meta Description?
A meta description is essentially the snippet of text that you will see on google when your search engine result appears. In the meta description, you’ll usually find a summary of what the web page says – which will then allow you to make a judgement on whether or not it is relevant to your search.
When uploading a page, a blog post, or a product to your site you have the ability to edit the meta description to encourage people to click on your link.
Why Are They Important?
There are many reasons why meta descriptions are important and one of these is that you can increase your click through rate and organic search visits. If you want your link to stand out against the others on the page, then your meta description needs to be doing its job.
You’ll also find that a good meta description can encourage visits when a user does an Advanced Search on Google. Social networks like Facebook also display your meta description so through this you can drive your social media traffic as well as your organic traffic.
What You Need To Know When Writing Them
Now that we have established the importance of meta descriptions for SEO optimisation, we must understand how to write a useful meta description. Firstly, you should know that the ideal length for meta descriptions is no longer than 160 characters including spaces. However, the amount of text displayed can change so I would advise that you stick between 155-160 characters.
We all know how important keywords are in SEO but are you using your keyword in your meta description? If you want to encourage conversions, then you need to ensure that your entire keyword is in there. Keywords will be highlighted in bold in search results which can make your link stand out.
Things To Avoid
While there is no perfect way to write a meta description, there are some things that you should avoid when doing so. I would advise that you try to avoid creating a meta description that is hard to follow. You have a limited number of characters so make them count.
You should also try to avoid having a meta description that is too long as this could negatively affect your click through rate. We want people to know that we have the answer to their query so get all of the information in there within 160 characters.
It is clear that meta descriptions are a very important tool for affiliates who want to encourage visitors and increase conversions. Make sure that your meta description follows these guidelines to increase your organic traffic.