Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Can I use the first sentence of my page content as a meta description tag as well?
-
I just want to copy my content on the page and use the first or as well the second sentence of the content self for my meta description tag. Is that OK? Or should the Meta description tag be different?
-
Ruslan, Thank you so much for your answer. Do you know by the chance the name of the plug in I can install for Wordpress (that's how my site is build in).
-
Hi Paulina.
I agree with Ruslan in terms of whether it is OK from a ranking perspective.
However, it is critical to remember that your meta data has another important objective - to entice searchers to click through to your page.
A well written meta description makes a considerable difference to click-through rates.
Consider spending as long on your page meta data as you would when trying to write an effective Adwords Ad.
In consideration of this objective (maximising click through rates), you may find that the first sentence or two of your body copy would not suffice as an effective meta description.
cheers, David.
-
I think nobody will blame me if I tell you YES, because until now it is not proven fact that the appearance of your keywords in meta description will make an impact on your rankings. However I will recommend two things:
-
If you use any type of CMS (Joomla or Werdpress) to build your website then you can download the plugin which generates the meta description automaticaly.
-
Still it's better if you will include the targeted keywords from page to meta description, and even if you check SeoMoz on-page optimization, those guys are recommend to do this.
-
Remember that attractive and interesting Meta Description might highlight you among your competitors and bring you additional traffic even if you are not TOP1.
Hope that it was clear.
-
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
-
Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?
The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want? In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages. Thanks! Zack
On-Page Optimization | | rootandbranch0 -
How to peroperly use h1 , h2 and h3 tag on your website.
Is it better to have different h1 for each page or have the same h1 across the site. I am using h1 fin wordpress for beside that I have 4 more h1 in the same page how to properly use h2 and h3 can we have muliple h2 on a page. what would be an ideal hx tag order be ? h1
On-Page Optimization | | conversiontactics
h2
h2- h3 h3 If anyone can provide some answers Many thanks0 -
The page is missing meta language information.
Hi, I saw my website have a problem about meta language, I do some search and found that I need to add on the , with 'll' is language code and 'cc' is country code. But I am confused what should I do, because my website is world wide, not launch at specific any language and country. Please give me an advice in this case. Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh0 -
Do you think using accordion text can hurt SEO?
I have a lot of text for my home page. My plan is to a J Query Plugin for accordion text. Does anyone think that this can hurt SEO efforts?
On-Page Optimization | | DTOSI1 -
How many keywords max can I optimize each page for?
I don't want to over optimize by doing 1 keyword per 1 page, but then if I do more, seomoz on-page tool report doesn't give an A grade for each keyword I optimize. I usually optimize for max 3 keywords that are very closely related, meaning they use the same words. Ex. dentist los angeles, los angeles dentist, dentist in los angeles Am I on the right track or what's your recommendation? Should I create different landing pages for each keyword?
On-Page Optimization | | sub90900 -
ECommerce Product Meta Descriptions vs. Product Descriptions
Wondering if using on-page product descriptions as the individual product meta descriptions is a best practice for an eCommerce site? Instead of writing two product descriptions (one regular and one meta), I am thinking if the product copy is SEO rich, we'd be good to use just the one for both purposes. Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Seems that many companies follow this practice. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | kennyrowe1 -
How to handle Meta Tags on Pagination... page 2,3,4....
Seems that SEOMoz reports are considering my paginated pages as duplicate Meta Tags. For example, I have a product catalog with 5 paginated pages. Obviously the content on each page is unique and the URL ends in =4, =5 for the page number, but the Title and Description are the same for all the pages. Any suggestions on how to handle this? The pages other than page 1 are not indexed, so it should not be a big deal. But wondering if I should programatically ad the page number to the additional pages to show a difference?
On-Page Optimization | | paddlej0