Controlling the position in search engines of a website is the closest thing to the philosopher’s stone for companies and brands that use an expert in order to increase their web traffic and, by extension, their convertibility. The roadmap includes multiple parameters and, among them, one of the best friends of SEO is the. Its value goes beyond influencing the SERPS, it is a strategic content to increase your visits to your website.

No self-respecting SEO professional will guarantee you, today, the top position in Google, Bing or Yahoo !, however, there are strategies that, as in any professional online / offline marketing and advertising campaign, can improve their results significantly of search and impact on its popularity, its sales, its reputation …

Among the strategic actions we often do not grant the relevance they deserve, Metatags optimization stands out, tags that are in the html code and can pass before your eyes without arousing greater admiration, but allying with them could make you win this obstacle course in which positioning is often converted into search engines.

The Description are usually placed inside the labels andof the source code of a page, just after the Title (title) and before the Keywords (keywords), although the order may vary. It is important to emphasize that, due to the use and abuse of labels, they are not as determinant as they used to be for Google, Bing and Yahoo !, although they continue to value them in their classifications because they define the site.

In this regard, Google says that “meta tags are a perfect way for webmasters to provide search engines with information about their sites”, with the Description being one of the most relevant, not only to indicate search engines “about what is “our website, but for the user, to find our result in the SERPs, consider it” the most beautiful of the dance “and click on it to try out a possible professional idyll.

Structure of the Description:

Some people believe that the Description has ceased to have relevance, just as it happened with the Keywords, but in the Google Webmaster Tools (Search Engine Webmaster Tools) alerts are issued when the descriptions are all the same. Why? Because it is as if a book had in all the chapters the same title (title) and synopsis or heading. Would not you think you are reading the same thing over and over again? What is a printing error? Or, worse, that the author does not offer us new and relevant content for us and you would discard the reading? Well, the same thing happens to Google.

Pure attraction for the user, High Relevance for the search engine

If our description is really good, it will achieve both objectives, because Google will pick it up in its SERPS and, among the multiple results thrown, the Internet user will click on it to correspond with what it really looks for. Think about it: What determines that you click on a site versus other alternative results? Most users, consciously or unconsciously, click on the description of the web that attracts them the most. The snipped is the closest thing to an ad by words: we must indicate the most relevant aspects so that quality users (or target audience) want to visit us.

Alliance between Snipped and Description

One mistake that many people make is confusing both terms. A snipped is the fragment selected by Google and other search engines to show it in the SERPS associated with a page; whereas the Description is a label of the source code (meta tag) that indicates to the engine of «what is going» the page, that is to say, the snipped created by the webmaster of the page, that can coincide or not with the one of Google.

Logically, in many cases they coincide, but if you do not find the key word (s) the user is looking for, it will crawl the page to find another match, make a hybrid between several phrases or it will not position it. By default, Google tends to select the first 20 or 25 words of the Description. However, in most cases, depending on the keyword by which we search our website (if it is positioned) will change the snipped, or snippet of text selected by Google, for many of the results.

SEO Optimization of the Description

In addition to the previous point, it is important to emphasize that for a description to appear in the search results by a keyword, it must generally contain it. Does this mean that it is enough to link keywords like the wagons of a train? Not at all, it is advisable to create a phrase that includes the main keywords after a study of them. In principle, the recommended extension for the Description is about 150 characters, because it is what the snipped usually collects, however they can be more extensive and link several sentences with different criteria, but not just listed, but cited in the most naturalized way possible.

Tips to optimize the meta description

• Each description must be UNIQUE and DIFFERENT from each other. We should not repeat descriptions taken from other pages, even if these are ours (remember the example of the book).
• The content of the Description must be RELEVANT with respect to the content of the page , that is, not only must it have a coherent structure, but it must also correspond to the web content: If you mainly sell “Nike sports shoes” you should pick it up at the description, do not indicate that you sell shoes in general or talk about the materials. It is about that user and search engine detect in a few seconds if your website interests them or not regarding their search. Nor does it make sense to integrate highly sought keywords or the brand of the competition only to appear in the results. The search finishes detecting it and the user will feel cheated.
• Call to the ACTION that seeks REACTION in the user . We will analyze what is the action we want to achieve in the user and we will include a call in the description to do so. Example: “If you are looking for Nike shoes at the best price, special offers from leading brands, visit us now and take advantage of our summer offers!”.
• Take out all the heavy artillery and show your DIFFERENTIAL FACTOR: Make it clear to your potential clients, especially the most hesitant, what makes your site different, why they should enter it in front of the rest of the offer of your competition. In the United States they call this the “Unique selling proposition”. The key is to find a special description that maximizes visits from the search results. It sounds like the recipe of the alchemist but if we do not experiment, we will not reach our own formula of success.

What happens if the keyword (term or set of words with which we search through the search engines) does not appear in the Description? Well, the search engine will track our site and classify it by the content it finds, but it will not have indications about its relevance. Many times it takes as a Description the highlighted fragment with an h2 or a paragraph of the text that contains the Keyword, even it collects several extracts.

The power of Description in Social Media, a hook to share!

In the recently released (and still in beta) was Internet 3.0, where social media are imposed as means of socialization and popularization of brands and companies, the Descriptions play a key role. Yes! When some thought that SEO and its tactics could fall into ostracism, it is confirmed that this profession is always reinvented and adapted to new times.

Every time someone shares a content on Facebook or Twitter has the opportunity to share a description of the site, a claim. If we invest a time in developing a description for each socializable content we will perceive the difference between those who only share a link and those who share a business card for your website, with a title and a summary of the article.

If no meta description is specified, by default the first sentence of the article or content that is shared appears, which often is not representative of its overall nature. Therefore, the most advisable thing is that web content such as articles in a blog contain its own optimized Description. This brief introduction to the content will depend, in most cases, to be shared on social networks and to obtain visits.

What do you think about the advantages of the Description? They are just five minutes and can increase your clicks with hardly any effort.