Why it matters for a small business site
It’s your pitch in the search results: the line that helps someone pick your link over the one above it. It doesn’t directly change where you rank, but a clear one can earn more of the clicks you do get.
How to check yours
- Search Google for site:yourdomain.com to see how your pages appear now.
- View the page source and look for <meta name="description" content="…">.
- Check that every important page has its own description, not a copy of the home page’s.
What good looks like
One or two plain sentences that say what the page offers and who it’s for, using the words people search with. Around 150 to 160 characters is a common guide, since longer ones are often cut off. Google sometimes writes its own snippet from your page instead, especially when yours doesn’t match the search.
Common mistakes
- No description at all, so Google picks whatever text it finds, sometimes the cookie notice.
- The same description on every page.
- A list of keywords instead of a sentence.
- Promising something the page doesn’t deliver.