How to use the description meta tag to drive more traffic to your website.
Suppose you managed to get the number one position for searches (SERPS) on your keyword. What if you get that position and still don’t get substantially more traffic?
How can that happen, you ask? Maybe the search result right below yours sells better than yours. Search Engine Marketing isn’t just about position; it’s also about action. If you want people to walk in your store, you have to have a good store front window display. If you want people to actually click on your search result, you have to have a good description.
Often SEO consultants will just use the description tag as another opportunity for stuffing keywords, but it’s really more than that. The description shows up as the impression the searcher gets of your website.
A good description should contain the keywords your search marketing strategy is set up for, but that’s really backwards thinking. Instead, concentrate on writing a good description and your keywords will usually fall right in.
Recently I did a search on “stock photography in Albuquerque” and got this result;
Albuquerque Stock Photos and Images. 638 Albuquerque pictures and …
638 Albuquerque stock photos and images. Fotosearch Stock Photography and Stock Footage helps you find the perfect photo or footage, fast!
This is a well-written description. It describes what I will find at the website, uses first person and has energy. You’ll notice that it is chock-full of appropriate keywords, but more importantly, it’s a well-written description that makes me want to click-through to the website.
Also, it’s good to keep your description to 160 characters because most Search engines results will cut off more than that anyway.
Finally, it’s important to note that Google will pull text from your content surrounding the keyword being searched if there is no description tag. Sometimes this can actually be as good or better than a description tag; for example on a page that displays a product catalog. Most of the time I prefer to control what description is being displayed though.
Instructions for WordPress
First of all, if you don’t already have it, get the Platinum SEO Pack and install it. Once installed each page, post and the site overall will have section at the bottom for Title, Description and Keywords, and yes, each one should have their own.
If you are unable to or don’t want to install a new plug-in, then you can insert the following in the header.php file of your theme. This will be a “static” description meta tag, because it will be the same on every page and is dynamic with the content.
Go to Appearance -> Themes -> Editor ->Header (header.php) and add <meta content=”Your description goes here”
Instructions for Joomla
There are several good components for Joomla that handle meta tags for you, but Joomla also has a built in system. When creating a new article note the options on the right side for “Metadata Information”. In these fields be certain to add a description for every article.
For the Joomla website as a whole, you will want to go to Site -> Global Configuration and fill in the appropriate field with a description.
Note : I wouldn’t bother with Joomla extensions that automatically create your description for you. If you aren’t going to take the time to create a quality description, you might as well let Google choose it for you form your content.