Add meta descriptions

What does a good meta description do?

Let's get straight to the point: In terms of SEO, the meta description is only indirectly relevant. Until 2009, it was different, as it was an important ranking factor for Google. The result was that website providers overloaded their meta descriptions with keywords and no longer offered the user any added value. Since then, the topic has officially ceased to be SEO-relevant. In practice, however, the meta description has a significant influence on the click-through rate (CTR) of a website in the search results. If the user finds a meta description particularly attractive and interesting, they are more likely to click on it than a competitor's with a less appealing description, even if the latter's ranking may be higher. and it is generally the case that pages that are clicked on more often rank better. So the meta description is somehow SEO-relevant via the CTR diversions!

How do I create a good meta description?

Very important: it should be a clear, precise and easy-to-understand description of what is offered on the page or what the page content is. Of course, this also includes the keywords that make up this page content. The keywords that visitors to a page most frequently search for should of course be known and used accordingly. For example, if a user searches for "electric guitar", the term "electric guitar" will be displayed in bold in the search result and will therefore stand out. This suggests to the user: You'll find exactly what you're looking for here.

It also makes sense to use a call-to-action (CTA), i.e. a request for action. Example: an online wine retailer attracts customers to "order now with free shipping from 60 euros".

Visual signals such as diamonds, hooks, hearts and countless other symbols that can be inserted via HTML codes provide additional attention. It remains to be seen whether such a "playful" appearance fits in with the company's image.
Do I have to create a description for every page?

Of course not. Apart from the homepage and the subpages of the main menu, only where it makes sense. This depends entirely on the structure and content of a website. Generally speaking, you can say that a meta description should be created for those individual pages on which the user can find a solution to their problem. In the case of an online shop, for example, these are the category pages. You don't need to worry about the other pages. If Google cannot find an anchored description, it searches for a text from the individual page concerned, which is usually quite suitable. This is better than a standard text that is always repeated.
What does a meta description look like?

The rule of thumb is that a meta description can be about 1000 pixels long, which is a maximum of 170 characters. If the description is longer, Google simply shortens it and replaces the text with dots. There are numerous so-called snippet generators on the Internet that can be used to test the length of the texts: simply enter the desired description and the tool will then show whether the text length is suitable.

Examples:

Everything is right here: a good page title that contains the keyword, the main keyword also appears in the meta description, the content is clearly understandable, the special characters (hooks) make the text clearer and even a CTA (call to action) is included.
Here is an example of the meta description of a category page. The search term was "women's shoes red", the result here is again very clear, concrete, clear content, keyword and CTA - everything is there.
In this case, however, it is obvious that no meta description has been entered and Google has read a description. In this case, it is rather confusing and without any added value for the user.

TYRIOS fallback for missing meta description

If you have forgotten to enter a meta description for a page, category or product, TYRIOS reacts automatically.

• For content management pages, TYRIOS automatically adopts the first 180 characters of the content as the meta description
• For categories, TYRIOS automatically adopts the first 180 characters of the category description. If this does not exist, the first 180 characters of the subcategories are listed.
• For products, TYRIOS automatically takes over the first 180 characters of the short description of the article. This should be present in any case, as it is legally required.

Thanks to the automatic fallback, TYRIOS systematically prevents Google from using the wrong text (such as the cookie banner or the address bar) as preview text.