The Meta description is an HTML element that is used to display the description / summery of a web page. For search engines and social platforms it’s important that you write descriptive and engaging Meta descriptions, based on the main focus keyword(s) and subject of your page. Meta descriptions are displayed underneath the Title tag / headline and the URL on the search engine results page.
Google uses a maximum width to determine when they will cut off a description. To be sure your Meta description will be displayed completely it’s recommended to use a maximum of 320 characters (punctuation included).
Meta descriptions aren’t a direct ranking factor for search engines, but an attractive description will improve your CTR (click trough rate). Search engines uses CTR and other engagement metrics to serve the most relevant top 10 results for a search query.
So make sure you write relevant and engaging descriptions to get the attention from potential visitors and maximize the Click Trough Ratio from the search engine results page.
There are multiple situations when search engines might choose to ignore your description and generated their own based on the page content. Let’s have a look at some examples:
I would recommend writing Meta descriptions, at least for your best performing organic landing pages. And when you’re responsible for an e-commerce website it is wise to use description templates, because in that case you can generate pretty well structured descriptions using keyword insertion.
Because the Meta description just don’t carry the weight like for example the Title tag does, it’s important you make the right decision how you spend your SEO time and efforts. In some cases it can be wise to leave the meta description empty for less important pages and let search engines figure it out.
Page source: <meta name="description" content="Write relevant, descriptive and engaging meta descriptions for all your important pages to maximize the Click Trough Ratio from the search engine results page">