Do you know there's a built-in feature in the hidden programming of every web page that is designed specifically as a sales tool for you?
You've probably heard the term "Meta Description," but maybe you didn't quite know what it was. In a nutshell, it's a 150 character description that you can use as a sales message.
But where does the sales message show up? You've seen these messages every day of your internet life but probably never thought of them as a sales message.
Okay, to the point: The search engine results page (SERP for short) of each engine shows a list of web page titles and snippets from websites. Sometimes those snippets are created automatically, and sometimes the search engine shows the message from the Meta Description.
If you have 500 or more words on a single page of your site, the engine is more inclined to show a snippet from your page than the Meta Description you provide. But if you keep the page less than 500 words, you can pretty much rely on the engine to serve your 150 character sales message.
So the next time you add a page to your site, or add a product to your online catalog, make sure you edit your Meta Description as a 2 sentence sales message that tells someone what they will actually find on the page. Most content management systems give you the ability to edit these tags on a per page basis. Ask your web programmer or your host technical support for help if you can't figure it out.
Google has a new search engine optimization handbook; actually, they call it their "starter guide." In there, on page 6 and 7 they explain this concept in-depth. The best take-away is that you should have a different Meta Description for every page of your site.
