

The best approach to increase the chances of your description being visible is to follow meta description best practices and ensure you’re providing the best user experience possible.Generally speaking, it's up to Google to create a SERP headline for your page, and it could use any of the section headings from within the page - or it may even create a new headline altogether.īut the first place Google is going to check for headline ideas is the title tag, and where a title tag is present, Google will very likely make it the main headline in the relevant listing. When it comes down to it, Google will always have more control over what is displayed in its search results than us SEOs will. Structured data can be added to identify your content as recipes, reviews or FAQs, to name just a few. Adding structured data to your page can also help Google determine what your content is about.Your metadata should be unique and descriptive for each page of your website to increase the chances of Google displaying it. Avoid duplicating meta descriptions across multiple pages.Google now shows up to 320 characters in search results, but still does not recommend increasing meta descriptions to 320 characters. Best practice is to keep meta descriptions to 160 characters or less. Make sure your meta description falls with Google’s length requirements.Ensure the description accurately reflects what is written on your page.

To maximise your chances of Google displaying your meta description, it’s crucial to follow best practice:

How can I increase the chances of my bespoke meta description being displayed in the search results? Google is trying to match the search query with the content, but the match isn’t in the meta descriptionĭue to this, it is imperative to follow SEO best practice when creating title tags or meta descriptions to increase the chances of your own content being used in the search results.To more accurately match the search query.Poor use of a meta description by not using it to summarise a web page.When Google’s John Mueller was asked for reasons why this might occur, he offered three scenarios There are many scenarios in which Google won’t display your own title tag or meta description in the search results. This copy will not be displayed in your meta description Why might Google not show your meta description? One method of controlling what content can be used in your meta description, even if Google decides to rewrite it, is to use a data-nosnippet attribute to wrap the copy you do not want to be displayed in your meta description. Because of these factors, the user’s search query can therefore end up determining what meta description is shown by Google and whether your bespoke description, or Google’s suggestion, is deemed more relevant to the user on this occasion. Google will decide what metadata to display in the search results by analysing the on-page content and then comparing this information with the user’s search query. How does Google decide what meta description to show in the search results? High performing metadata can have a significant influence on click-through rates, leads and social shares, so it’s important to get it right. These short paragraphs or descriptions are an opportunity to advertise your offering and content as well as entice the user, so it’s important to be as compelling as possible. Google displays meta descriptions along with their page titles in the search results when a user enters a query. Google actually rewrites your meta descriptions more than 50% of the time, so how can you best stay in control of your metadata to ensure the best results? What is a meta description?Ī meta description is an HTML attribute that provides a short description of what your page is about. Annoyingly, these meta descriptions are sometimes not displayed to users. SEOs write optimised and creative meta descriptions for web pages to entice users to engage and click through to a website. There are frustrations across the SEO industry with how Google handles metadata within search results.
