Do I need a Meta description for every page?
-
HI Guys,
We have just developed a new website and I'm looking to add meta descriptions with relevant key words to the pages . As the site has over 80 pages it is quite an undertaking and i was wandering if pages, such as the shopping cart and FAQ's etc, need meta descriptions as well?
Thanks in advance : )
Pete
-
You might also consider using spcial characters within your meta description like: ★
Use only only one at a time otherwise google ignores it. But in general it is a great way to improve organic CTR's if used appropriately.
-
Hi Michael,
I'm not talking about the product pages that make up the site, just the actual cart and checkout pages.
I'm not sure what eCommerce platform you're running, but basically whatever page is displayed when a customer clicks "My Cart" and "Checkout" or whatever it happens to be on your site... the pages that are dynamically generated when user's add products and purchase items. There's no need to have a My Cart or a Checkout page ranking in Google that shows an empty cart or an error when somebody clicks the search result. Same thing for customer account pages like order tracking or order history... anything that's dynamically generated and requires a user to be logged in or have an active session on the site.
-
Secondly, some pages (like the Shopping Cart or other customer specific pages), you don't really want showing up in Google, so it's best to instruct Google not to index these pages (either via the robots.txt file or meta-robots tag). If Google doesn't index the page, then there's no need for the Meta Description.
Why would you not want google to index these pages or use meta titles or descriptions? I am kind of in the same situation as the OP and have had some success on making some of my products in my shopping cart rank in google.
warmest regards,
Michael
-
80 pages and the amount of work involved is all worth it my friend.
-
Hear hear. Thumbs up.
-
Also, if you have none present, Google will make up it's own based on what's on the page - sometime not always the right context - if you include your own, you're more likely to have control of what's displayed.
-
Agree with Anthony - a unique meta description should be present on each page. Won't help with rankings but will help with click-through-rates
-
Hi Pete,
Good question.
First thing, don't worry too much about keywords in your meta descriptions. Google will make them bold, which might draw some attention to your listing on the results page, but keywords in meta descriptions don't actually improve rankings.
Instead, use the meta description area to entice the searcher to visit your site. What set's you apart from the competition... do you offer free shipping?... any special promotions? Using the Meta Description as an informative snippet and a call to action is much more effective in increasing CTR (Click Thru Rate) and Conversions than packing them with keywords.
Secondly, some pages (like the Shopping Cart or other customer specific pages), you don't really want showing up in Google, so it's best to instruct Google not to index these pages (either via the robots.txt file or meta-robots tag). If Google doesn't index the page, then there's no need for the Meta Description.
Lastly, I'd recommend investing the time in writing good Meta Descriptions for the pages that you anticipate will be receiving the most impressions and traffic, and use a default description of the site for the pages that will likely rarely appear in results.
Hope this helps!
Thanks,
Anthony
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
-
Meta Refresh
Hi, This forum has proved to be quite active and useful for me. Can any body help me about "Meta Refresh" that Moz weekly report shows as error. My site is not that which needs daily basis or say hourly basis update. We change the content but not daily. Should i address this issue or just ignore it. what impact does it may have if i ignore it. Thanks, Tanveer
On-Page Optimization | | Sequelmed0 -
Search Pages outranking Product Pages
A lot of the results seen in the search engines for our site are pages from our search results on our site, i.e. Widgets | Search Results This has happened over time and wasn't intentional, but in many cases we see our search results pages appearing over our actual product pages in search, which isn't ideal. Simply blocking indexing of these pages via robots wouldn't be ideal, at least all at once as we would have that period of time where those Search Results pages would be offline and our product pages would still be at the back of ranking. Any ideas on a strategy to replace these Search Results with the actual products in a way that won't hurt us too bad during the transition? Or a way to make the actual product pages rank above the search results? Currently, it is often the opposite. Thanks! Craig
On-Page Optimization | | TheCraig0 -
Mobile Meta Description shorter then Desktop?
I'm pretty sure when I counted the mobile meta description in Google, it's a lot shorter then the recommended 165 char for desktop. Is it shorter or am I just seeing things?
On-Page Optimization | | activitysuper0 -
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 -
Faq page
We are redoing our faq page and we were trying to decide on the best format. 1. Create each question on a separate page 2. Create one page with all the question and have the questions expand 3. Create different faq category pages (like 4) and divide the questions between them From my perspective #1 seems the best ---. you can create hyper relevant content for the user and optimize each question really well Any experience with this?
On-Page Optimization | | Morris770 -
Best practice for Meta-Robots tag in categories and author pages?
For some of our site we use Wordpress, which we really like working with. The question I have is for the categories and authors pages (and similiar pages), i.e. the one looking: http://www.domain.com/authors/. Should you or should you not use follow, noindex for meta-robots? We have a lot of categories/tags/authors which generates a lot of pages. I'm a bit worried that google won't like this and leaning towards adding the follow, noindex. But the more I read about it, the more I see people disagree. What does the community of Seomoz think?
On-Page Optimization | | Lobtec0 -
Pages not cached
Sorry for all the questions. I have dozens of article pages that are not cached by google. How can I get them cached?
On-Page Optimization | | azguy0 -
Too Many On-Page Links
I recently took on a website design client and ran his website through a battery of tests using Pro to take a look at the crawl errors. One that seems to stump me is the error "Too many On-Page links" concerning his blog. (http://franksdesigns.com/wp/blog) This is the first time I've seen this error and am rather confused. The report says there are 104 links on this page. However, I'm having trouble grasping this concept or finding the 104 links. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you for your support!
On-Page Optimization | | WebLadder0