Best Article Length for Search Engine Optimization
Writers often ask about the best article length for search engine optimization. The answer is a common one in website publishing: it depends.
A 2016 study from Backlinko.com of nearly 12 million Google search results found that the average article on the first page (10 results) had 1,447 words. (more…)
HTML Anchor Links That Deliver Better Website Results
Best practices for HTML anchor links impact how often website visitors click on them. More clicks lead to more page views, return visits and website revenue.
Anchor links on websites are made up of text and code that encourage visitors to click on them. A bad anchor link is a waste of time if it doesn’t get clicks. Clicks matter because they send important signals in search engine optimization in several important ways: (more…)
Alt Tags for Images Bring Mild SEO Benefits
Alt tags for images are important in some ways and unimportant in others.
Content management systems offer and encourage the use of alt tags. For example, WordPress has an alt tag box with every image. But the publisher has the option of using it or not using it. (more…)
Meta Description Length Impacts Search Click Rate
Meta description length can impact search engine results as well as how often searchers click.
Although search engines may use up to 155-160 characters, it doesn’t mean website publishers should write meta descriptions that long. Brevity has advantages. (more…)
Internal Linking for SEO Improves Page Ranking
Internal linking with SEO in mind is a surefire way of improving the ranking results of a page in search engines.
It is well known that Google in particular tracks the links coming into a site from external sources. But internal links also matter because they make pages easier to find. (more…)
SEO Tactics Decline While Online Branding Rises
SEO tactics that fail to keep up with search engines run the risk of shrinking or even failing. Although some tactics are no longer useful, site publishers can focus more on branding.
Many websites have declined or folded because of the way search engines have changed their approach to ranking sites in its search results. (more…)
How to Write Perfect Meta Descriptions for SEO
Writing a perfect meta description for search engine optimization is easy. The search engines themselves already have them.
Meta descriptions were originally meant as abstracts that search engines would use in their search results. But search descriptions are no longer always the same thing as meta descriptions.
Google’s algorithms began a trend toward ignoring an article meta description if it didn’t like it. Instead, it would take sentences and even parts of sentences from the article and create its own description of the article content.
Other search engines have followed that practice, although each one does it somewhat differently. To see how they do it, just do a search on some articles from a site and compare the descriptions in the search results. Oftentimes, they contain the full meta description from the article. Other times they contain fragments of it or even something completely different.
Sadly, the practice isn’t necessarily meant to help websites. The descriptions on the search engines take the most relevant information from the article to keep searchers on the search engines instead of clicking off to read more. If the search has a simple question, a search description may answer it without requiring the searcher to click away.
Website publishers, editors and writers can’t stop these rewritten descriptions. But they can take advantage of them.
Better Meta Descriptions for SEO
A review of the descriptions in search results will show some that are well done and some that are not well done. Good descriptions improve search engine optimization increase the potential for better article rankings. Bad ones don’t.
So publishers will find a benefit by looking at the search engine descriptions on articles that don’t rank well and compare them to their own site meta descriptions.
In truth, search engines don’t always have a perfect meta description for a site to use or even a good one. If publishers see a high-quality search description, they can copy and paste it into the meta description box on their article page. If they see a low-quality search description, they can analyze what the search engine tried to create and then create a better version of their own meta description.
In time, the search engines may pick up the improved meta description and use it instead. The improvement potentially will increase the article rank. Better article rankings lead to more clicks, even though search engines don’t want to lose the searcher.
Human Summaries Versus Search Descriptions
There was a time when websites used also meta descriptions as article summaries. These summaries would often appear on index pages such as the homepage.
Even now, many content management systems use a summary as a meta description and vice versa. But they also give publishers the option of creating a summary for human consumption and a description for search consumption that are different.
For example, WordPress has an “excerpt” box for a summary that may or may not appear as a meta description, depending on the WordPress theme. But WP plugins for search engine optimization almost always include the ability to separate the human description from the search description.
Although creating two different descriptions is somewhat more work, the effort is worth it if search engines recognize a meta description that they like.
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