Adding CTAs in Meta Descriptions
-
Whats peoples opinions about putting Call To Cations CTAs in Meta Descriptions, and does this ever occur a Google penalty, as it can sometimes look a bit clickbait.
For example I am looking at a site which currently has this meta description
Meta Description: For more information on our sustainable, natural office furniture, click here to get in contact.
Is this kind of description ranking unfriendly, Ive seen them used a lot but IM not a big fan of this myself.
Any thoughts?
-
It's worth adding a call to action to a meta description because it can help improve the CTR.
Our business, sells garden offices, and we added new meta titles, and descriptions, which were much better written, the CTR improved.
-
CTA's in MD's work, so we use them often, but usually at the end. So a full MD with details about the page and then a CTA at the end. "Contact us today for a free Quote" etc. But I agree with Joe I also try and use the targetted customer query once in the MD together with synonyms if it works...
Hope that assists.
-
Hi there!
Improving Meta descriptions in order to get higher CTR won't be penalized by Google unless you do something black hat or include some forbidden words.
My experience showed:
1- There is always a set of title+meta description that can optimize CTR for a single page. Remember to focus on the main keyword, as a page can rank for several search terms.
2- Improving CTR doesn't always get better rankings, but hell it brings more traffic! That's what you should be aiming, not only better rankings.As Nozzle said, experiment carefully and make one change at a time.
Hope it helps.
Best luck.
Gaston -
IMHO use meta descriptions to sell what's on the webpage, learn from the good Google Ads copy, including CTA's isn't necessary I personally focus on keyword insertion instead.
-
Meta descriptions do not affect your rankings whatsoever. Well...at least not directly. Some argue that higher click through rates can increase your rankings.
Whether that is true or not, you want to write meta descriptions that do entice people to click on your listing so that you get more traffic from the SERPs and a lot of times including a call to action can increase your click through rate.
My suggestion is to test different meta descriptions on pages that have good rankings until you find the one that has the highest click through rate. You can monitor a specific page's click through rate in Google Search Console.
Keep track of when Google re-crawls your page so you know what dates to analyze when trying to figure out the CTR of each meta description test. Keep in mind that title tag changes will affect your CTR as well so only change one or the other at a time to get an accurate reading.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it good idea to use special characters in Meta Tags?
Hello Experts, Is it good idea to add special characters while writing meta title and descriptions? Characters such as $ # Check Marks % If yes, will it help increase the CTR of page? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | jhakasseo0 -
Should I include my company entity in meta description? (for ex. LLC. Inc.)
I'm re-writing my meta descriptions. I'm wondering if I should include the My Company, LLC. in the description or just My Company. Taking out the entity would save about 4 characters.
On-Page Optimization | | IcarusSEO1 -
Writing unique meta titles for canonicalised products or not?
Hi all, I have a question (duh): I have like 10 colours of the same product. I will make one colour the canonical, do I still need to write unique meta titles for the others? I am almost certain it doesn't add value at all, but wanted to double check since I couldn't find it anywhere. Thanks a lot in advance and have a great day!
On-Page Optimization | | TheOnlineWarp0 -
Will German meta data help an English USA-based site get found in Germany?
I think I already know the answer to this, but I'd love a second opinion. If you add German meta data to some web pages will it help those pages turn up in search results in Germany?I'm assuming not. It's an English, USA based site, doing well here for English searches - and I don't want to mess that up. A German site is being planned, but this client is hoping the English site could be found in the meantime. ~Caro
On-Page Optimization | | Caro-O0 -
Category Descriptions if Category Pages are Noindexed?
I have noindexed my category pages. Do I still need to write a description for my categories? I am using the plugin SEO Content Control to see what I can spiff up but I don't want to waste my time. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | dealblogger0 -
Dublicate meta
Hello, we have many dublicate meta titles and descriptions. But it shouldn't be. dublicate examples: www.site.com/page-name.html www.site.com/Page-Name.html Mainly all dublicates are for capital letters. but we have in such urls canonical tag with lower case urls. So why google detects as dublicates? Need your advise urgent. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | bele0 -
Meta Description Tags and Rankings
Hi there, I have a lot of pages set up on my site but most have no content. If I add the correct meta description tags to those pages, will that help rank for the root domain? I am slowly getting the content added for each page but wanted to see if I could boost rankings in the meantime. http://www.petmedicalcenter.com Example: most of pages under "Services" are blank. Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | PMC-3120870