Meta Descriptions- To Add or Not to Add them to Web Pages?

Google has made various and frequent changes in its Meta description pattern.

The December 2017 saw a change where the limit of Meta description was increased from 155 to 265 characters.

Now, this limit has again brought to the same old number and you may not want to add Meta description to your website.

So, here are some valuable details about Meta descriptions which every site owner should know-

3 Reasons Why You Need to Write Meta Description

Google Is Frequently Making Changes to Meta Description Pattern

Google keeps updating its tools and their features on regular basis.

Similarly, it did with Meta description limit in December 2017, when the limit was increased to 155 to 260-275 characters.

Then, again 6 months later, Google reversed them to 155 again.

Writing Meta descriptions requires a significant amount of time and more to the context, there were many websites which show better result during this test period with no Meta description.

What to do When Have Limited Resources?

However, Google ensures having Meta descriptions on all website pages. Here is what Google actually says-

“Google will sometimes use the <meta> description tag from a page to generate a search results snippet if we think it gives users a more accurate description than would be possible purely from the on-page content.”

Therefore, how an organization with limited resources can hope to be on the top of all things which are compulsory to rank and get traffic?

It can’t.

Meta descriptions are needed, but not always.

Google Writes Its Own Meta Description Apart from Yours

Do you know Google writes its own Meta description? Even though you write yours.

A recent study reveals that “comparing the before and after of Google’s description length change, found that in two-thirds of the cases, Google used words from the first paragraph of content on the page to create a description for the snippet.”

So, this suggests rather than optimizing Meta descriptions focus on optimizing the first paragraph of the content, if wants to influence description snippets.

4 Times When Meta Description is Recommended

Homepage

Homepage perhaps the most vital page on your website needed most of the attention especially creating its Meta description.

If you have gone through homepages, you may have noticed that these pages have more imagery and designs and less paragraph text.

Thus the need for a meta description increases.

For a brand website, the homepage meta description enables a chance to rank soon and well on search page results.

Product & Category Pages

If your website is a profit-making one like you’re selling products and incur numbers of category pages, add Meta to them.

This will not only help the search engine but also for your users.

These pages are important to pay attention and absolutely worth spending your time making those pages better as much as possible.

Google Majorly Focuses on Content

Content is something that has always been vital to Google. Suppose you have a number of blog pages, but few of them are bringing search traffic. Then focus on that minimal percentage.

Google says modifying the meta description for old content which isn’t ranking is not going enhance its rank in the current state and not going to bring traffic.

Improve the descriptions of only those which have good traffic.

Keep in Mind When to Ignore Alerts

All web pages should include meta descriptions when an SEO professional along with its team is able to craft meta descriptions and change them.

But, in actual sense, there is limited time for all of us and thus should act accordingly.

It is very much needed that how we use our time while defining our goals and practices and also when employs them.

For instance, the pages which drive ample traffic are worth paying time.

And in such cases, you may go for encouraging Google to create description snippets.

Conclusion

Meta descriptions are absolutely a required element when it comes to make a website SEO-friendly.

But, at the same time, you should know when or when not to add descriptions to the web pages.

Here some points that will let you know how to go ahead with your website Meta plans.