Meta description

What it means

A meta description is a short text in a page’s code that briefly describes its content. Visitors do not see it on the page itself, but search engines often show it in results beneath the page title. It is the first text people use to decide whether to click.

It does not directly affect ranking, but it does affect click-through rate. A good description that answers the searcher’s question and contains the searched keyword brings more visits from the same position. Search engines often bold the searched words in the description.

The search engine does not have to use it. If it judges that another snippet from the page answers a particular query better, it shows that instead. This happens most with missing, overly generic or duplicate descriptions.

How it works in practice

Every important page should have its own unique meta description of roughly one or two sentences. On glossary pages like this one, the short definition of the term serves as the meta description and also directly answers the question of what the term means.

On service landing pages we recommend stating what the company offers, for whom and what sets it apart, ideally with a clear call to action. The same approach as in copywriting helps: talk about the customer’s need, not the company.

In a site audit we look for pages with no description, duplicate descriptions or descriptions that do not match the content. On a multilingual site each language version should have a description in its own language, not an unchecked machine translation.

What to watch out for

A common mistake is the same description on dozens of pages, for example generated by a template. The search engine then ignores it and shows random snippets, often unsuitable ones. Even a short but unique description beats a generic one.

The second risk is a misleading description promising something the page does not contain. The visitor clicks but leaves at once, and the company loses trust and a potential customer.