Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Adding CTAs in Meta Descriptions
-
Whats peoples opinions about putting Call To Cations CTAs in Meta Descriptions, and does this ever occur a Google penalty, as it can sometimes look a bit clickbait.
For example I am looking at a site which currently has this meta description
Meta Description: For more information on our sustainable, natural office furniture, click here to get in contact.
Is this kind of description ranking unfriendly, Ive seen them used a lot but IM not a big fan of this myself.
Any thoughts?
-
It's worth adding a call to action to a meta description because it can help improve the CTR.
Our business, sells garden offices, and we added new meta titles, and descriptions, which were much better written, the CTR improved.
- topic:timeago_earlier,5 years
-
CTA's in MD's work, so we use them often, but usually at the end. So a full MD with details about the page and then a CTA at the end. "Contact us today for a free Quote" etc. But I agree with Joe I also try and use the targetted customer query once in the MD together with synonyms if it works...
Hope that assists.
-
Hi there!
Improving Meta descriptions in order to get higher CTR won't be penalized by Google unless you do something black hat or include some forbidden words.
My experience showed:
1- There is always a set of title+meta description that can optimize CTR for a single page. Remember to focus on the main keyword, as a page can rank for several search terms.
2- Improving CTR doesn't always get better rankings, but hell it brings more traffic! That's what you should be aiming, not only better rankings.As Nozzle said, experiment carefully and make one change at a time.
Hope it helps.
Best luck.
Gaston -
IMHO use meta descriptions to sell what's on the webpage, learn from the good Google Ads copy, including CTA's isn't necessary I personally focus on keyword insertion instead.
-
Meta descriptions do not affect your rankings whatsoever. Well...at least not directly. Some argue that higher click through rates can increase your rankings.
Whether that is true or not, you want to write meta descriptions that do entice people to click on your listing so that you get more traffic from the SERPs and a lot of times including a call to action can increase your click through rate.
My suggestion is to test different meta descriptions on pages that have good rankings until you find the one that has the highest click through rate. You can monitor a specific page's click through rate in Google Search Console.
Keep track of when Google re-crawls your page so you know what dates to analyze when trying to figure out the CTR of each meta description test. Keep in mind that title tag changes will affect your CTR as well so only change one or the other at a time to get an accurate reading.
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
-
What is the best meta description for Category Pages, Tag Pages and Main Article?
Hi, I want to index all my categories and tags. But I fear about duplicating the meta description. for example: I have a tag name "Learn Stock Market", a category name "Learning", and a main article "What is Stock Market". What is your suggestion for meta description of these three pages that looks great for seo google?
On-Page Optimization | Jun 9, 2020, 12:59 PM | mbmozmb0 -
How do you add meta data to dynamic pages?
We have 1000's of dynamic pages on the website and would like to know how to add meta data to these dynamically generated pages. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | Jul 6, 2018, 11:03 AM | REIT0 -
A charset attribute on a meta element found after the first 1024 bytes.
Can anybody help me with this error please... Error: A charset attribute on a meta element found after the first 1024 bytes https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fsocialmotors.uk%2F I have no idea how to find or fix this issue, i have spoke to my theme dev and they say it is not a problem with the theme, so i do not know were to turn now. As you will see in the link above there are a couple of errors, i do not know how to fix them either 😞 Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | Mar 7, 2017, 3:08 PM | Taylor170 -
How many words for product description
Hi, I've read articles on the MOZ blog, which stress the point for unique product descriptions. I think this was even mentioned in one White Board Friday. Now I am in the process of writing them. How many words should they have at least in your opinion? Best, Robin
On-Page Optimization | Jul 2, 2014, 10:54 AM | soralsokal0 -
My Meta Description changes when i use different keyword in google search.
Hello everyone, I have a question for the community. I have a website with several articles and news that i manage. I set specific meta descriptions for every page but when i search in google it gives me back different meta descriptions depending on the keyword that i use to search. What i notice is that google looks in my page for the most relevant part of the text that combines with my keyword and gives me back that result. I thought that this only happen when i have an empty meta description. Anyone felt the same ? Best Ricardo www.meuportalfinanceiro.pt
On-Page Optimization | Aug 14, 2013, 8:48 AM | Adclick0 -
Can I use the same text in my meta description as I put in my post excerpt?
Hi, I'm just trying to understand the right way to optimise my blog posts and this is likely a dumb question... but to what extent should the text in my meta description differ from the text in my post excerpts? cheers, Andrew
On-Page Optimization | Jun 10, 2013, 10:55 AM | seowhiskey0 -
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 | Aug 24, 2013, 11:15 AM | kennyrowe1 -
Missing meta descriptions on indexed pages, portfolio, tags, author and archive pages. I am using SEO all in one, any advice?
I am having a few problems that I can't seem to work out.....I am fairly new to this and can't seem to work out the following: Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 1. I am missing alot of meta description tags. I have installed "All in One SEO" but there seems to be no options to add meta descriptions in portfolio posts. I have also written meta descriptions for 'tags' and whilst I can see them in WP they don't seem to be activated. 2. The blog has pages indexed by WP- called Part 2 (/page/2), Part 3 (/page/3) etc. How do I solve this issue of meta descriptions and indexed pages? 3. There is also a page for myself, the author, that has multiple indexes for all the blog posts I have written, and I can't edit these archives to add meta descriptions. This also applies to the month archives for the blog. 4. Also, SEOmoz tells me that I have too many links on my blog page (also indexed) and their consequent tags. This also applies to the author pages (myself ). How do I fix this? Thanks for your help 🙂 Regards Nadia
On-Page Optimization | Feb 28, 2012, 7:46 PM | PHDAustralia680