Tag Archives: Search Engine Optimization

How much time does SEO copywriting take before your rankings improve?

How much time does SEO copywriting take to improve search engine rankings

How much time does SEO copywriting take to improve search engine rankings

I was going through a Reddit thread about whether a person should invest in SEO if he is spending good money on advertising on Facebook and other social media networks.

People also talk about how much time it takes for search engine rankings to improve.

SEO copywriting is the backbone of search engine optimization.

SEO copywriting is the backbone of search engine rankings

SEO copywriting is the backbone of search engine rankings

Search engine optimization does not exist without optimized content because if there is no content, if there is no copy, what do you optimize?

Three main components of SEO – as I understand the field – are:

  • Writing and publishing optimized content.
  • Optimizing source code so that search engine crawlers can crawl and index content without hurdles.
  • Getting backlinks from authority websites, preferably with higher page rank.
  • Interlinking existing content.
  • Increasing the time people spend on the website.

Recently Google rolled out its “Helpful Content” algorithm update that penalizes websites that solely publish content meant to improve search engine rankings, without providing any value to human readers.

This is a good step on Google’s part because what is the purpose of publishing even optimized content if your content is not solve any purpose.

Therefore, SEO copywriting can help you only if it really helps your readers.

What is SEO copywriting?

The meaning of SEO copywriting

The meaning of SEO copywriting

I’m surprised that after all these years people still ask this question.

SEO copywriting in itself is nothing.

Every useful piece of copywriting is search engine optimized automatically.

As Google has suggested in its new algorithm guidelines, always write and publish human-friendly, human-first content.

And anyway, unless you are a high-authority website with hundreds of backlinks and a domain that is very old, even if you publish top-class content, it is difficult to get higher search engine rankings in just a couple of months.

So, if you hire me for my SEO copywriting services and then you expect that your rankings should improve within two months, you are daydreaming.

Even if I give you an example of my own website, although I’m writing this blog post on “SEO copywriting” there is a slim chance it will rank well because high authority websites such as Hubspot, Search Engine Journal, Backlinko, and Neil Patel (among many more) have already ranked well on the first and the second page.

Then why am I writing on this topic if I don’t hope to rank well for “SEO copywriting”?

It improves my content depth – and this is a reason why you should publish SEO content.

To gradually improve your content depth because as your content depth increases, so do your search engine rankings.

Now coming back to the question of “What is SEO copywriting?”

The simple explanation is that it is the art of writing informative content following the best SEO practices.

These practices include:

Crafting a headline that truly represents the body content.

Using the language used by the target audience.

Using short sentences to make it easier for humans to read and for search engine algorithms to process.

Strategically using keywords and search terms within the content so that they are an integral part of your narrative.

Satisfying the search intent – with what intent people are searching for your information?

How is SEO copywriting different from SEO content writing?

Difference between SEO copywriting and content writing

Difference between SEO copywriting and content writing

Content writing is mostly for blogs and other pieces of content that is meant to inform and educate.

You follow the same conventions when writing SEO content but a big difference is that in copywriting, you convince and convert people.

In copywriting, there is a CTA.

Content writing is used for blogging, case studies and other information articles.

Copywriting is used for the main website content, email marketing campaigns, landing pages and social media advertisements.

Hence, SEO copywriting means writing search engine friendly copy with the intention of making people perform the action represented by your CTA.

How long does SEO copywriting take before your search engine rankings improve?

Your search engine rankings don’t just depend on optimized content although, your content is the base of your entire SEO strategy.

SEO experts say that there are more than 200 factors that affect your search engine rankings, and your content or copy is just one of them.

Still, from the perspective of a content writer who has attained decent rankings for a few websites merely on the strength of SEO content, how long does it take?

I’m talking from the perspective of SEO copywriting and content writing.

I have experienced this with a couple of my own websites.

If you publish content – good SEO content – everyday, and preferably multiple times in a day, you can improve your rankings in 3-4 months.

It depends on the topics you choose.

It also depends on how well you can use your keywords and how competitive those keywords are.

You need to focus on longtail keywords because main and primary keywords are already covered by other websites.

For example, if I want to rank well for search terms like “content writing services” or “SEO copywriting services”, at least right now it is near to impossible.

Therefore, I try to focus on less competitive search terms.

For example, I rank well for “content writer for accounting businesses” or “content writer for coaching websites”.

In fact, even if you search for “SEO copywriter for accounting business” you will be able to find my website in top position.

Again, coming back to how much time it takes.

If you are aiming for rare keywords that very few people use, your website can start ranking well even within a couple of weeks if you manually submit your links to Google after publishing them.

But with fair amount of competition, give yourself 3-6 months.

3-6 months when you publish content everyday on your chosen keywords.

You will need to exercise patience.

Can you improve your rankings just on the strength of SEO copywriting without getting backlinks.

I have never actively sought backlinks.

My website has backlinks but that’s because many people have linked to my blog posts on their own.

Over the past 10 years, my website has accumulated some good backlinks.

Somewhere around in 2010 I actively wrote guest blog posts for some high traffic websites and from there I got a few backlinks.

After that, I never tried, and I solely focused on publishing content on my own website.

I use a mix of SEO copywriting and content writing to keep my content search engine friendly.

My rankings are not stellar but they are good enough to give me a steady flow of work.

I don’t remember how much time my content writing website took to create a search engine presence, but I have worked on two other websites.

For both of them, I was able to start getting search engine traffic within three months.

But I published lots of content, sometimes more than 5-6 posts per day, with 4 being minimum.

Those were highly focused blog posts and back in those days (5-10 years ago) Google was not very strict.

Since most of my blog posts linked to external content, they were just 300-400 words.

Despite that, I could get them rank on the first page.

Realistically, what suggestion would I give to someone starting from scratch?

How long does SEO copywriting take before the rankings improve?

Keep a budget for 4 months if you publish one web page or one blog post every day.

If you publish twice every day then 2-3 months.

It goes without saying that how well your SEO copywriting performs depends on the degree of competition you face, but then, whenever you are starting from scratch, it is always better to focus on less competitive search terms.

5 SEO copywriting tips to improve your rankings and conversion rate

SEO copywriting tips to improve your rankings and conversion rate

SEO copywriting tips to improve your rankings and conversion rate

Effective copywriting follows a multipronged approach.

It aims to improve your search engine rankings organically.

It also aims to improve your conversion rate in addition to meaningfully engaging your visitors.

Many clients these days prefer to hire SEO copywriting services instead of content writing services because then they can get the best of both worlds.

What exactly is SEO copywriting?

Is it same as SEO content writing?

Not necessarily.

Remember that the end goal of copywriting is to convert leads.

The end goal of content writing is to generate organic traffic.

Therefore, in the conventional sense, you use content writing to generate organic traffic and then you use copywriting to convert that traffic into paying customers and clients.

Another big difference between copywriting and content writing is that when you write copy for a web page or even a blog post, there is a clearly defined CTA (call-to-action).

The purpose of general content is to provide information and generate awareness whereas the purpose of copywriting is to prompt people to take action.

SEO copywriting means writing the copy in such a manner that it also helps you improve your search engine rankings.

Just because you are writing copy to generate leads it doesn’t mean search engine rankings are irrelevant.

Just as search engine rankings are important for your average blog post, they are also important for your business web pages, for which, copywriting is required.

What type of content requires SEO copywriting?

Frankly, anything.

It is often said that copywriting is mostly required for promotional material but even when you are writing for your blog posts and articles, you can wear the hat of a copywriter and write a convincing copy to make people take an action.

This is especially important when you are writing a business blog.

Nonetheless, you may require SEO copywriting for following types of content:

  • Main website copy
  • Landing pages
  • Product descriptions
  • Blog posts and articles.

One of the biggest benefits of SEO copywriting is that it forces a writer to write both for the search engines and the users.

Listed below are 5 SEO copywriting tips that can help you improve your search engine rankings as well as conversion rate.

Make a list of questions that people ask

Google loves questions so much that it ranks web pages and blog posts providing answers to query-based questions higher than other web pages and blog posts.

Therefore, a query like, “How can I improve my SEO copywriting?” brings better and targeted results than “best SEO copywriting services”.

You can prepare a list of frequently asked questions.

You can use websites like AnswerThePublic, Quora, and Reddit to find out what questions people are asking pertaining to a certain field.

Why prepare copy based on questions?

People type complete questions – complete queries – when they ask precise questions.

If Google thinks that your answer precisely matches the question being asked, it features your content as a snippet, increasing your click-through-rate by almost 35%.

Additionally, you express yourself better when you are providing answers to straightforward questions.

It makes your copy easy flowing.

Use your main keyword in the title

The title of a web page is different from the main headline.

The title appears as a hyperlink in your search engine listings, just above the description.

In HTML parlance, it is also called “meta title”.

The headline on the other hand is the big font message that you see at the top of a blog post or web page.

They can be same, and they can be different depending on your preference and SEO needs.

People tend to click more on the links that contain the words they have just used in the query.

Your click-through-rate is important for better search engine rankings.

The more people click your search listings, the higher they begin to appear.

This is because when more people click your link Google thinks that it contains the relevant information for the query just used.

Use the language your target audience uses

This is one of the most important SEO copywriting tips.

Why is it important to use the language your target audience uses?

People normally use search queries in the language they are comfortable in.

Since a big portion of searches are voice searches these days, people search the way they speak.

They use conversational language.

Visit forums.

Spend some time on social media websites.

Directly interact with your customers and clients.

Carefully observe the way they talk to you.

The way they talk about your product or service may be completely different than how you talk about your product or service

For example, as a mobile phone manufacturer you may talk about the AMOLED display as a great feature but for a user, the benefit is that he or she can watch videos clearer than an average flat screen TV.

As a SaaS provider, you may find the feature that your software can be used on every device but for the user, the more important aspect might be that he or she can subscribe for a lesser fee instead of paying a hefty one-time fee for a bulky software.

Write for the search intent

Your SEO copywriting becomes more effective if you write your copy based on search intent.

Search intent is the intention with which an individual uses Google or any other search engine.

People have distinct intentions and when you are writing copy you should be able to recognize that distinction.

Some people are simply looking for information.

They have no intention of doing business with you right now.

They don’t need to be convinced.

They simply need to be engaged with useful, relevant information so that by the time they are ready to do business with you, they recognize you and respect your opinion.

Their search intent is informational.

Some people, although ready to do business, haven’t made up their minds yet.

They need more information.

They need comparisons

They are ready to be sold to.

They are interested in reading FAQs, product comparisons, testimonials, and reviews.

They may be searching for something like, “pros and cons of Google Workspace and Windows 365”.

Their search intent is commercial.

Then some people are ready to buy.

They are searching for something like, “the best copywriting services for my accounting website”, or, “looking for SEO copywriter”.

Their search intent is transactional.

Write your copy targeting different searcher intents for better search engine rankings and conversion.

Don’t cram multiple keywords in a single document

Sometimes to save cost client send me a long list of keywords that need to be incorporated into a single document.

This is bad both for SEO and conversion rate.

I prefer to use only three keywords when I’m writing a blog post or web page.

One primary keyword and two related keywords.

When you are given a list of 10 or 15 keywords, unnecessarily you have to write extra words to incorporate all the keywords.

This dilutes the effectiveness of your entire copywriting process.

Whether you are doing SEO copywriting for your own website or working for a client, make sure that per page or per blog post you cover just 2-3 keywords.

Write in-depth blog posts and web pages

Both Google and your human readers prefer long form content – 1300-1500 words.

My average length is 1000-1200 words.

But, writing too many words doesn’t mean you fill up your blog posts and web pages with useless information.

Write long form content only when you have highly useful information to share with your readers.

Assuming you are delivering useful information, long form content makes readers spend more time on your website.

This reduces your bounce rate.

It increases engagement rate.

It helps you build your authority.

Long form content attracts backlinks from other websites and blogs.

Since lots of information is present on a single source, and since your bounce rate is low, Google begins to improve your search engine rankings for those pieces of content.

For improving your search engine rankings as well as engagement rate, have a long-term target for your SEO copywriting projects.

This is applicable to your own website and the websites of your clients.

Don’t overcommit.

Don’t promise results within a month or so.

No matter how excellent your blog posts and articles are, you cannot deliver tangible results in one or two months.

At the minimum, make a commitment of 6 months

It takes around 6-8 months of sustained SEO copywriting to experience some observable results in terms of better rankings and higher conversion rate.

What stops your content from improving your search engine rankings?

What stops your content from improving your search engine rankings

What stops your content from improving your search engine rankings

Have you been posting content without much success with search engine rankings?

This can be frustrating.

Especially when you are putting in lots of effort and money into publishing high quality content on a regular basis.

How well your content ranks on search engines depends on multiple factors.

High-quality, relevant and engaging content is fundamental.

Without good content there can be no rankings.

Your search engine rankings depend on

  • How much content you have already published.
  • Your content publishing frequency.
  • Your content publishing consistency.
  • The niche of your content.
  • The topics you have been covering.
  • The relevance of your topics.
  • Your click-through-rate on search engine listings.
  • Your bounce rate.
  • Search engine optimization level of your content.
  • Social proof your website and individual links attract.
  • The quality of incoming links from external websites.
  • Internal linking of the content within your website or blog.
  • How easy or difficult it is for the search engine crawlers to access your content.
  • The age of your domain.

There are 200 odd factors that decide the search engine rankings of your content.

The factors that I have listed above are under your control.

There are many factors that are not under your control and they occur over a period of time, provided you keep publishing and promoting your content.

Nonetheless, how you write your content, how you choose your topics, and how you format your content, can have a significant bearing on your search engine rankings.

Over the years I have observed two types of problems that clients face:

  • Less search engine traffic.
  • Decent traffic but no business.

Less search engine traffic happens when content is not published regularly.

Decent traffic but no business happens when incorrect topics are chosen – topics that are not relevant to the target customers and clients.

Below I am listing a few reasons why your content may not be ranking well on search engines.

You are not choosing the topics your readers want

There is no direct connection between what you are publishing and what your readers are looking for.

This may result in your website attracting good traffic but not generating much business, or not generating traffic at all.

You need to have a clear idea of what people are searching for in relation with your business.

For my Credible Content blog I want to attract search engine traffic for the following topics

  • Content writing
  • Copywriting
  • SEO copywriting
  • SEO content writing
  • Email marketing copywriting
  • Social media marketing content writing

And such.

All my topics involved one of these expressions.

When you are writing content to improve your search engine rankings it is very important that in the topics you use the language and the expressions that are normally used by your target audience.

You are choosing topics that are too competitive

Are you writing on topics 25 other websites already rank on top?

It is normal tendency to want to write on topics that you are easily finding in search results thinking that they are in high demand.

Yes, they are in high demand, but many top-ranking websites have already occupied the top space for those topics.

SEO copywriting tips Google screenshot

SEO copywriting tips Google screenshot

Instead of going for very popular topics, use longtail keywords to come up with topics that are highly useful, but not very competitive.

For example, for me, it would be better to not write on “SEO copywriting tips”, but write on something like “10 SEO copywriting tips for beginners”.

I may attract fewer visitors, but at least, there is a chance I will get higher rankings for a less competitive title and there will be an audience for it.

You are not publishing content with greater frequency

This is important in the beginning when the Google search engine crawler hasn’t yet started crawling your website.

The crawling frequency depends on the frequency of content publishing.

The more often you publish, the greater is the frequency of the Google crawler.

If there is no routine, if you don’t publish content regularly, the crawler does not visit your website or blog regularly and hence your content is not included in the search engine index.

Even when it is included, it may take months before it can appear in search results.

So, what should be your content publishing frequency?

In the beginning, I would suggest, if your budget allows, two blog posts or web pages everyday.

I know, you may think it is too much, but if you want to improve your search engine rankings fast, then this is a good way to go.

Publishing twice and then submitting your URL to Google will get your content indexed faster.

You let Google know that your website is being updated with great frequency and hence, it should be crawled accordingly.

Once your content has begun to show up in search results, you can gradually reduce your frequency from two publications to one in a day.

It is recommended that you update your website at least 16 times every month even if you have good search engine traffic.

You are not using your keywords properly

How you use your keywords is very critical to the success of your search engine optimization campaign.

You need to use your keywords as exact phrase and as different parts.

Your main phrase must appear in the title of your web page or blog post.

For example, if I want to optimize my blog post for “SEO copywriting tips”, then this phrase must appear at least once in the title.

It can be a part of a bigger sentence or a bigger phrase, but it must be there.

Your main keyword must also appear within the first 100 words of your blog post, article, or web page.

There is a reason for that.

When search engine crawlers crawl your content, they may not get enough time to crawl the entire piece of content.

Midway they may leave for other sections of your website, or may even leave your website altogether.

Hence, use your main keyword in the beginning itself – this is because your main keyword represents the fundamental idea of what you are writing.

Without overusing, use different combinations of your main keyword (in my case, it would be “SEO”, “copywriting”, and “tips”) all over your text.

Use the exact phrase in some of the headings and subheadings.

If possible, also use the exact phrase at least once in bulleted points.

Also make sure you don’t over use your keyword.

In my case, instead of constantly using “SEO copywriting tips” I can use “writing tips”, “SEO writing”, “SEO tips” and “tips on SEO copywriting”.

With practice you learn to strike a balance.

You are publishing thin content

Most of the SEO experts recommend that your individual web pages and blog posts must be a 1000 words or more.

My blog posts average around 1000-1300 words.

Although Google considers less than 400 words as thin content, how many words you need depends on your competition.

If you run your longtail keyword through a tool like SEMRush it will tell you, based on your competitors, how many words your present blog post or web page must have to get a decent chance of ranking well.

Most of my clients ask for 800-1000 words, which is fine.

Personally, I believe, as long as you are publishing relevant content, there is no such thing as thin content.

Nonetheless, research has shown that the top 10 pieces of content that rank on Google, are more than 1000 words.

If, despite publishing regularly, your content is not ranking well, this could be one of the reasons.

For a couple of months, try publishing blog posts and web pages that are more than 1300 words.

Your Google click-through-ratio is low

Your search click-through-ratio is the number of times people click your link divided by the number of times your content appears in search results.

If, despite appearing in search results, fewer people are clicking your links, it tells the Google algorithm that the current rankings of your links are not solving their purpose, and as a result, your current rankings are lowered.

Therefore, despite the fact that sometimes your content is appearing in search results, just because people are not clicking your links, your rankings are lowered until they are way down the listings to be found.

Your bounce rate is high

I’m talking about the bounce rate in terms of traffic coming from search engines like Google.

Bounce rate means the number of people immediately leaving your website after finding your link on Google divided by the total number of people finding your link on Google, clicking it, and then coming to your website.

Google knows how much time people spend on your link once they find the link in search results.

If, after finding your link on search results and then clicking it, people hardly spend a few seconds on your web page or blog post, the Google algorithm assumes that your link doesn’t deserve its current rankings for the keyword it is showing up right now.

It assumes that the link does not have the information people are looking for, for the associated search term, and hence, your rankings are lowered.

These are a few factors that stop your content from ranking well on search engines.

There may be more factors that are directly in your control, or not in your control, but as far as your content goes, if you can take care of the above, you can significantly improve your search engine rankings.

SEO content writing: Should you write content for robots or humans?

SEO content writing – should you write content for robots or humans

SEO content writing – should you write content for robots or humans

This is an age-old question, and it has been asked and answered umpteen times.

It is quite tempting to target search engine robots when writing content because after all we all want to improve search engine rankings. Not just improve, but possibly, get our legs at the first spot.

A FirstPageSage analysis has found that links that rank at the top on Google have an average CTR of 39.6%. Compared to this, the CTR of a link at the fifth position drops to 5.1%.

Therefore, it is tempting that writing for robots takes precedence over writing for humans. The problem is, it can be a pyrrhic victory if all the traffic that you generate does not lead to proportional business.

Whom to write for when you write content for SEO?

This Moz blog post tries to answer that. Although we all know that ultimately it’s the humans find your content on search engines, click the link, and come to your website or blog, to do whatever you want them to do, how to strike a balance?

Is there even a need to strike a balance? Shouldn’t good content automatically rank well on Google?

There are two worlds regarding this: an ideal world and an actual world.

In the ideal world, and even Google sometimes claims that this ideal world exists, you should simply focus on quality and your rankings are taken care of on their own.

It is like the concept of Dharma: you do your deed, and the outcome comes on its own.

But in the real-world things can be quite chaotic. Roughly 70 million new posts are published just on WordPress. Hundreds of billions of web pages are competing on Google to get at the top spot. Therefore, you cannot take the search engine robots for granted no matter how much you simply want to write for your human visitors. You need to strike a balance.

How do you do that?

SEO content writing: how to balance between robots and humans?

I’m writing about my own experience with search engines and humans. When I’m writing SEO content for my clients my first priority are the humans. I believe you write content so that it generates business for you. If it doesn’t generate business for you, no matter how much traffic you get, it is of no use.

On the flipside, no matter how good and relevant your content is if you don’t get targeted search engine traffic, all the effort of writing quality content goes waste.

Here are a few things I follow:

Use the primary search term in the title

This often proves effective. The primary search term must be an expression your visitors are most likely to use when looking for information regarding your topic.

For example, the focus of this blog post would be “Should I write SEO content for robots or humans?” or something like that.

Distribute the primary and secondary keywords throughout the text

But don’t force them. Keep them contextual. These are for search engines as well as human readers.

When you are making a list of primary and secondary keywords make sure your list contains all the words your target audience is likely to use. Be mindful that the way you talk about your business might be totally different from the way people talk about your business.

Use your keywords within the first 100 words.

The reason for this is that the Google crawlers may not crawl your entire web page or blog post. They may leave midway. This way, they will gather all the necessary keywords from the first or the second paragraph.

Use your keywords in headings and subheadings

Just as humans may skim your web page or blog post without reading the fine print, Google crawlers may do the same.

Both robots and humans skim your content by quickly going through headings and subheadings. If you use your target keywords in your headings and subheadings Google crawlers can make out what message you are trying to convey and they will also know what keywords you are using.

Write compelling titles and descriptions

These are meta tag descriptors, and they appear in search results when your link is ranked and displayed. The meta title appears with a hyperlink in the description appears below.

These are your marketing messages. Usually the main headline of your blog post or web page is the same as your meta title but they can also be different. Through your title you are targeting the search engine users.

Even if your link begins to appear in search results, if the title is not inspiring enough, people are not going to click. Use your copywriting skills.

Remember that if your CTR is low the rankings for the same link begin to deteriorate and if your CTR is good, the rankings improve.

Just as your title, your description is important too. Your description gives you further chance to convince search engine users to visit your link and read what you have written.

Use simple language

Writing is a beautiful, expressive medium. As a writer I wouldn’t advise you to curb your writing skills, but remember that people are reading your blog post or web page because they are looking for information and not for great literary work.

Use simple words and expressions. Express just a single idea in a single sentence. Don’t have paragraphs more than two sentences.

You can use a Flesch score analyzer in the beginning if you are not used to writing SEO friendly content. It scores your text between 0 to 100. The higher your score, the easier reading your content is. It can give you statistics such as ease of readability, average sentence length, and average number of syllables per word. According to various scores

  • A score between 90-100 is easier to read for a fifth grader.
  • A score between 60-70 can be easily understood by eighth and ninth graders.
  • Score between 0-30 is easily understood by college students.

Structure your content using the proper HTML tags

Appropriate HTML tags contribute a lot towards your higher search engine rankings.

<h1> is used for the main headline. It should be used just once on a web page or blog post. If you repeat it for every headline, it dilutes its effectiveness.

When you divide your text under various headlines the individual headline can be highlighted using the <h2> tag. They should preferably contain your keywords.

<h3> can be used for smaller subheadings that may come under the bigger headings of <h2> level.

In between you can also have bullet points as the Google algorithm thinks they usually contain useful information.

Be mindful of the length

Longer blog posts and web pages are known to perform better than the smaller ones but the rule is not written in stone.

Even a 300-word blog post can rank well depending on the reputation your domain enjoys and your brand presence on the web.

Nonetheless, write at least 1000 words. This is what I suggest to my clients. Even when I’m writing for my own blog I aim for 1000 words.

I have published more than a thousand posts and I have a decent presence on Google, so sometimes, I can also get away with small blog posts of 300-400 words.

My personal experience is, it is a mixture of frequency, relevancy, and eventually, the number of words you use, that decide your search engine visibility. The more high-quality content you publish (at least one post every day) the faster your content gets indexed by Google.

If you follow these guidelines, you pretty much automatically write for search engine robots as well as humans.

The importance of web page descriptions and how to write a perfect web page description?

How to write the perfect web page description

How to write the perfect web page description

Well, this is applicable to the description of any web page, including blog posts. How much attention do you give to your web page description? What exactly is web page description?

You don’t see web page description when you visit a website or blog: you need to see the source code. Description is a meta tag that is for search engines, content aggregators and social media websites.

A description is something like this

<meta name=”description” content=”Blogging can deliver you practically unlimited benefits but writing a regular blog is a tough nut to crack. It is better to working with a professional content writer.” />

Description is embedded within the source code. As I have just written above, it is not for the visitors but the search engine algorithms, content aggregators and social media platforms. It is automatically extracted – in most of the cases – when you post your link on Facebook or when your link appears in Google search results.

Of late Google has been randomly picking text sometimes instead of displaying the web page description, but in most of the cases, it is the description that shows up with your link and title.

Why is web page description important?

Google may randomly pick up text from your web page or blog post when displaying your link in search results, but it happens rarely. Most of the times, it is your description that appears with your title and your hyperlink.

Your description is your pitch. Through your description you convince people to visit your web page or the blog post. The title cannot capture the entire essence. The title is the main point, but you provide additional information on why people should read your web page, through your description.

Studies have proven that web pages and blog posts with a well-written meta description enjoy a higher CTR compared to those web pages who don’t have a meta description.

Every content management system (WordPress, for example) allows you to write the description of your web pages and blog posts separately.

How to write the perfect description for your web page?

Your web page description should be around 155-160 characters although many digital marketers have observed that Google may display a description that is more than 200 characters. The safer bet is around 170 characters. After that, Google truncates your description. Even if you want to have a longer description, describe whatever is the most important part of your description in the beginning. That way, even if Google truncates your description, your main point is put across.

Here are a few pointers to keep in mind when writing an effective description for your web pages and blog posts:

  • Answer the main question: What is the web page or the blog post about? Why should the visitor click the link and go to your web pages and blog posts to read what you have written or see what you have published?
  • The summary of your web page: Describe in a gist what your web page offers to the visitors.
  • Use your secondary keywords: I am assuming you have already used your primary keywords in your web page or blog post title. The description is the perfect place to use your secondary or non-primary keywords.
  • Use shorter, crisp sentences: You can use multiple sentences in the description. Capture one, small, idea in a single sentence. Longer sentences are difficult to read in a description.
  • Have a CTA: You can ask people to visit your link. Use a convincing call to action.

You write a description like a copywriter. It needs to be convincing. It needs to be persuasive. It should be to the point. It must convince visitors.