Writing effective SEO descriptions is almost as important as what you decide to name your site. Without compelling descriptions, trying to convince people to visit your site is extremely difficult.

Imagine this: you own a brick and mortar store with no windows. You have no signs or advertising to indicate what you sell. The only information you have available for customers is a store name, and 160 characters. How are you going to convince customers to come to your store?

This is essentially what you’re doing when you’re developing meta descriptions for your website. You’re trying to tell people what you do – and trying to convince them to come inside and look around.

By following these simple steps, you can create compelling and effective meta descriptions that will help boost your website’s SEO.

Keep It Short

A good rule of thumb is to keep your descriptions under 25 words. People get bored easily, and often lose interest after reading only a few words.

Think about the most important aspects of the page you are writing the description for (hint: there is always more than one). Then, rank those items in order of importance. What is your main goal? Once you’re all organized, put those first items closer to the start of the description.

Stay On Theme

Use words or phrases that appear often on your website. This will help search engines associate keywords with your website. Try and use a mix of words that appear in headings, subheadings, and paragraphs.

Include Keywords

If you’re actively bidding on keywords, now is the time to take advantage of them. Try and keep the keywords towards the beginning of the description.

Call-to-Action

What do you want me to do? Why should I click on your link and what should I do when I’m there? This is where you can get creative. If you’re selling something, try and appeal to the customers emotions here by painting the customer an image.

“Give the gift of love this holiday season with our custom made necklaces” This description suggests that the customer should take action by “giving the gift of love”.

Consider Writing It Out Like a Lead

Journalism students everywhere are probably shaking their heads at this one, but the truth is: it works

The idea is simple. Highlight the important information in as few words as possible. Like I said before, you should be keeping the important information towards the front, and writing your description out as a lead does just this.

If you haven’t the slightest clue as to what I’m talking about when I say that you should consider writing your description out as a lead, then take a trip over to Purude’s Online Writing Lab.

Following these steps should help you get a better grasp on what it takes to develop effective meta-descriptions. If you’re totally stuck, just take a look at meta-descriptions from some of your competitions like-minded landing pages.

Check out some other great tips from my recent post Simple SEO Tips and Tricks