In the olden’ days of the web, Google used to pull a lot of information from the Meta description of a website to help decipher what the site was about, and to help rank it in their results. Now they could give a shit.
Instead, your description tag, those 160 or so characters that get displayed under your domain name in the results field functions more as a tiny advertisement used to sell the searcher on clicking through to your site.
So make it count!
For example, here is mine:
“I help contractors build websites and create content that converts traffic into new clients or customers.”
Pretty compelling since that is exactly the type of client I am looking for, and you are probably looking for a website that brings in new clients, not readers or subscribers.
But what does yours say? Go ahead, I’ll wait, go search for your domain name, and then look at what the description is underneath.
Now, ask yourself this question, would YOU click through to that site if you didn’t own it? If your kid’s college education didn’t count on it? If your next mortgage payment or payroll didn’t depend on it?
If not, keep reading, if yes, go outside and play, you are excused from today’s exercises
If you keep in mind that the description tag is like your headline on your postcards or your YP ad, you will understand that the only job these 160 characters perform is to sell someone on clicking the link. And a well-written description tag WILL make people click through! I promise!
Now, if you don’t have a description tag, it could be even worse as the search engines will just pull anything from your site, which really could cause problems. So I suggest you either call your designer, do it yourself or call me to develop a solid description that helps you sell your services to the reader right at that critical moment when they are deciding to either do business with you or not.
So, for you home-gamers, how do you write your own solid description?
Tell your story and say something important to them that answers what’s in it for them. Don’t tell me how long you have been around or how you would love to give me a free consultation, tell me why I HAVE TO call you, email you or stop by your showroom.
Is there something that set’s your business apart? If not, then you are screwed anyway, and a good description isn’t going to save that, so you better come up with something, but that’s a different post.
Make it readable to the average user!
In other words, not too “inside baseball”. Nothing turns people off more than being confused or talked down to, so write the description so that anyone can understand what it is you do. Again, use mine as an example.
Calls to action
Now, some of you may want to insert a phone number inside your description. If you do, make sure you include a strong call to action, “Call Us” or “Call for More Information” are great ways to get people to move, which is what you want them to do.
Writing great ad copy or website copy is an art, but creating a description for your business should be easy, just make it whatever is the reason you started the business in the first place. Using that as your guideline, I bet you could really come up with a kick-ass description!