Meta description
A meta description is a short summary of a page, written in its HTML, that search engines may show under the title in their results.
A meta description is a short summary of a page that you write in the page's HTML. Search engines may show it under your title in their results, as the snippet people read before deciding whether to click. It looks like this:
<meta name="description" content="Freshly roasted single-origin coffee, delivered every month. Pause or cancel any time.">It has no effect on your rankings, but a clear one can get more people to click.
Google doesn't always use it
Google writes its own snippet when it thinks a different part of your page better fits what someone searched. It uses your meta description when that's the best summary for the search. Its guide to snippets explains when, and what makes a good description.
So write it for the most likely search, and make sure the page itself has good text to pull from too.
How to write one
- Say what the page offers and who it's for, in a sentence or two
- Write a different one for every page that matters
- Include the facts people compare on, like price, size or delivery, where they fit
- Keep it short enough to show in full, roughly 150 characters
For example, a weak description for Kestrel Roasters' espresso blend says "Welcome to Kestrel Roasters, Leeds' favourite coffee roaster." A better one says "A chocolatey espresso blend from Colombia and Brazil, roasted weekly in Leeds. 250g or 1kg, free UK delivery over £25."
Meta descriptions and AI answers
AI answers don't show your meta description. They write their own summary from the text of the pages they read. So in AI search, your opening paragraph does the job a meta description does in search: it's the part most likely to be picked up as the short answer.
The habits carry over, though. A meta description that says plainly what the page is and why it's useful is good practice for writing the first lines of the page itself.
In AnswerOrbit, An opening that answers is one of the eight page checks we run when you ask why a page isn't used for a prompt.