When you search for something online, you likely start the process by entering a few words in the search bar of your chosen search engine. Pretty simple, right?

Once your results are displayed, how do you decide what to click on? If you are like most people, this isn’t a long and drawn out process. In fact, you probably skim over the top results and read the title, and short description under the title. If nothing seems like a good fit, you move on to enter a new search query and begin the process again.

If you are a business or organization trying to get more clicks, you have to make sure your title and description are informative and encourage clicks. This title and description (along with a few other components) make up the meta data for each page and post you publish on your website.

What Happens if You Avoid Creating Meta Data? 

If you fail to create click-worthy meta data, you may quickly discover that your website is not getting the clicks and attention you desire. Not only that, you are probably not even showing up in the top of search engine rankings if you haven’t put time and effort into creating quality meta data. Don’t wait any longer to correct this issue since you are losing potential business each day you go without creating this important content.

Creating Effective Meta Data for Your Pages and Posts 

Creating effective meta data (which includes titles, photo tags and descriptions) requires you to think carefully about what the page or post has to offer. When you begin creating your titles and descriptions, do the following:

• Make the information concise and compelling
• For descriptions, keep them between 150 and 160 characters (anything over this is going to be cut off in SERPs, leaving half sentences)
• Use (avoid abusing) important keywords
• Put the keywords as close to the beginning of the title or description as possible
• Create something unique and attention grabbing

The goal of meta data is to let the search engine spiders know what the page or post is about, but also to encourage real searchers to click on your page, rather than on the competition’s page. Don’t neglect this important information. If you do, you may quickly discover that your ranking is low and your ability to entice more visitors is significantly limited.

Sources:

https://www.villanovau.com/resources/bi/metadata-importance-in-data-driven-world/#.WdzYBWhSyM8