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5 Meta Description Tips To Help Your Content Get the Clicks

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5 Meta Description Tips To Help Your Content Get the Clicks

In its early days, USA Today was dubbed “McPaper” for its very short stories.

Unlike their peers at other newspapers, USA Today reporters had to digest big news into just a few paragraphs. Many in the profession criticized USA Today articles for their brevity. But I think those critics missed the talent required to synthesize and write concise copy.

It’s a skill that content marketers can appreciate, especially now that every piece of digital content needs a meta description. Our task is even more difficult than the one USA Today journalists face. We must summarize the content – no matter how long it is – in 156 characters.

And meta descriptions can’t just be short – they also have to compel readers to action. They’re one of just two factors searchers use to decide if your content is worth their precious click. (The other is the title or headline).

I’ll share some tricks for packing the biggest punch into a tiny space. First, though, let’s look at a few real-world examples.

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Meta descriptions need to pack a big punch in a tiny space, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. #ContentMarketing Click To Tweet

A look at real meta descriptions

I know you know what they look like on SERPs, but I wanted to provide a visual reminder. So, I snapped the results from a search for “what are meta descriptions.” Yep, it’s a meta example.

(Of course, I can’t be sure each of these is the meta description. Google ultimately decides what appears in the results. It might choose a snippet from the page if it thinks the meta description as detailed in the HTML tag isn’t a good assessment of the content. But for the purposes of this article, let’s assume they are meta descriptions.)

The image shows four search results, each with meta descriptions below the page title.

The image shows four search results, each with meta descriptions below the page title. Each description ends with an ellipsis to indicate there’s more text ready to read. Interestingly, the visible descriptions are less than and more than 156 characters, so if you’re writing a meta description that you hope Google will use and fit in total, go for fewer than 156 characters or put the most important text early in the sentence.

Here’s how to make the most of the words that do fit.

1. Consider the searcher (aka why would someone search for this content?)

Think about why your audience would search for this topic. First, identify the targeted keywords for the article – this helps you understand who the target search audience is.

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For example, consider Search Engine Journal’s meta description (for its article on how to create meta descriptions): “The meta description is an HTML tag that provides search engines and searchers a description of what the page is about.”

While BrightEdge describes its page this way: “A meta description is the information about your page that appears in the search engine results below the title/URL of the page.”

Both explain a meta description. However, by using the phrase “HTML tag,” Search Engine Journal indicates its page serves an audience that wants to learn about SEO technicalities. On the other hand, BrightEdge wrote its article for a more general audience, which makes sense because it targets general marketers.

Make sure your meta description fits your targeted searcher’s intent.

2. Include keywords, even if they’re already in the headline and SEO title

You’ll find plenty of writing advice that says you should avoid repeating a word in one sentence that was used in the previous sentence. You might interpret that counsel to mean that you should avoid repetition in your title and meta description. Please don’t.

Crafting a compelling meta description isn’t about the perfect flow. It’s about getting people to read and click on your content. That often takes a more promotional approach.

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Crafting a compelling meta description isn’t about the perfect flow. It’s about getting people to read and click on your #content, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. #SEO Click To Tweet

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3. Entice the click – unless you don’t want one

It can seem like there are only two options for a meta description:

  • Answer the search query directly
  • Give just enough to pique searchers’ curiosity, so they click the link to read the full story on your website

If your sole purpose is to deliver the answer, answer the query directly (but expect fewer clicks). If you only want clicks, take the curiosity route.

In most cases, it’s probably best not to go one way or the other. Consider a combined approach for your meta description – give an answer (even if it isn’t the answer) and still pique their interest to read more.

You can do this by writing a meta description that explains what they will get when they choose to read your content as opposed to anyone else’s.

Use your meta description to explain why searchers should read your #content (rather than any of the other options on the SERP, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. #SEO Click To Tweet

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Let’s look at the HubSpot meta description as it appears on the search results page for the query “what are meta descriptions”: “Apr 28, 2022 — A meta description is the snippet of information below the blue link of a search result. Its purpose is to describe the contents of the page to …”

Its meta description reads much like every other result. But if you click through to the article, you’ll find it provides examples to go along with the basic explanation. What if HubSpot revised its meta to be specific to its content and differentiate itself from the rest?

“Apr 28, 2022 – A meta description is the snippet below the blue link of a search result. In these examples, see how they describe the contents of a page …”

See the difference? Now, the searcher knows they’ll find examples of meta descriptions if they click on the HubSpot link.


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4. What about including the company name in the meta description?

If your company has sufficient brand recognition and awareness in your industry, use its name in the meta description (or title). It brings a credibility factor that other results may not.

In the SERP screenshot I included above, HubSpot, Google, and BrightEdge use their names in their page titles. In some cases, that’s not feasible. Perhaps you need the real estate to capture the article better, or maybe your organization’s name is long.

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The latter is the issue for the Content Marketing Institute – it’s 27 characters. Though CMI has good brand recognition, it’s not so valuable that it’s worth taking more than one-third of the recommended title length. Instead, we include the name in meta descriptions when we can, usually at the end (“ – Content Marketing Institute”) since it’s not the most important part of the description but could be seen and helpful to some degree.

5. Don’t avoid punctuation, even though it counts toward the 156 characters

It can be tempting to save every possible character for words. In most cases, you should avoid that practice. Searchers scan the results to understand the context of the content – they rarely read the meta description word for word at first glance. So make it easy to understand at a glance.

As you write, think about how the description will appear. Is it easy to pick up the keywords and points when scanning? Or would searchers have to read closely to get the gist? If it’s the latter, rewrite it using fewer words and more sentences or breaks.

Adding a little breathing room to your description also helps it stand out among a sea of results – especially those that seem to cram in everything possible.

Bring the power to your meta descriptions

Compelling meta descriptions benefit from powerful writing more than most content elements.

To power up yours, avoid (or at least limit):

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  • First-person references
  • Weasel words
  • Qualifiers
  • Intensifiers
  • Prepositions
  • Passive phrases (which almost always consume more characters than active ones)

By adopting the “McPaper” mindset, you can serve up nuggets of meta descriptions designed to sate your target searcher’s appetite.

How do you approach writing meta descriptions? Share what works for you in the comments.

Want more content marketing tips, insights, and examples? Subscribe to workday or weekly emails from CMI.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute



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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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