For better SEO and to make your website searchable on Google and other search engines, You need to optimize every blog post. It starts with a catchy headline, high-quality original content, optimized images, a keyword in post title, URL, body content and meta description.
In this post, I am going to explain Meta Description in WordPress. It is very easy to write effective meta description in WordPress. Yoast SEO plugin makes it is easy to write meta description for each page.
Meta description is an HTML tag. WebDeveloper and bloggers use Meta descriptions attribute to provide concise explanations of the contents of web page.
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Meta descriptions are commonly used on search engine result pages (SERPs) to display preview snippets for a given page. You can see Meta Description example in the following screenshot.
how to write meta description in WordPress?
Meta Description tag goes in the head section of web page. WordPress does not have a feature to write meta description for posts and pages.
But You can use free SEO Plugins. Yoast SEO is a free and very popular SEO plugin. With this plugin, You can write a unique Meta Description, Title for SEO, slug and focus keyword for each blog post.
Yoast seo meta description
Install and activate Yoast SEO plugin. Write a new post and below the content editor, you can see Yoast Snippet Editor. To add Meta Description click on Edit Snippet button.
Here you can see the Yoast SEO screenshot.
Write a catchy title for search engines and effective meta description for your post. After writing meta description click close snippet editor button. You can see live snippet preview.
How to Write Great Meta Descriptions
Your focus has to be on persuading the searcher to click on your link. Always write meta description manually. Here are few tips to write effective meta Descriptions.
Meta Description should explain the reader exactly what they can find on your webpage if they click. Don’t deceive searchers remember they can click back button.
Consider starting your meta descriptions with verbs like “Learn,” “Discover,” or “Grab,”, and follow it up with specifics of what exactly they’ll get if they click. HubSpot
Generally, a meta description should be under 155 characters. If you will try to write a lengthy meta description, Yoast will change the text color from black to red.
how to add meta description in WordPress home page with Yoast SEO?
Yoast SEO is very powerful and advanced plugin, Under Titles & Metas section, You can write hand-crafted meta description for Homepage, Post Types, Taxonomies and Archives.
Click on HomePage tab and write a powerful meta decription about your website homepage. You can see the screenshot below for details.
To learn more about Home Page Meta Description, click on Help Center link. You can watch a video tutorials, search knowledge base, read template explanation and learn about basic and advanced variables.
Yoast has also published many free video tutorials about all Yoast plugin settings. Watch following video to learn more about Homepage titles and Meta Description.
Easy WP Meta Description WordPress Plugin
This is a free and very simple plugin, which allows you to write a separate description for each post, page or custom post type. which is added as a meta description to the html head.
The individual description for a post or page is typed and edited in a separate text field just below the text field for editing the post text.
This free plugin also allows you to write meta description for category, tag and custom taxonomy archive as well as front page.
To add description to a category, go to Dashboard > Posts > Categories. Select a category in the table to the right or create a new category.
Type the description in the text field Description, Weather or not this description will be viewed for visitors on the site is up to each theme.
To edit a front page meta description, go to WordPress Dashboard > Settings > Gemeral and edit Tagline.
Download Easy WP Meta Description WordPress Plugin
other resources
How to Write an Effective Meta Description is a great article at HubSpot Written by Ramesh Ranjan.
Read this detailed article about Meta Description at Moz Blog. Learn how to Write SEO Friendly Blog Post Title.
Read our step by step article to learn how Create Google friendly websites with WordPress.