Your meta description is the little grey paragraph under a link in Google. You write it, Google shows it, and if it’s too long, Google cuts it off with a “…” right where your best sentence used to be. Most people either skip it or write it like a filing label: “Home | Great Company | Contact Us”. Nobody clicks that.
Here’s the thing: the meta description is basically free ad copy. It’s the one piece of text about your page that you fully control, and it shows up exactly where people are about to click or not click. So it’s worth the two minutes.
Google tends to show around 155–160 characters. That’s not a hard rule — sometimes it picks its own snippet from the page — but if you write past 160, you’re gambling on where the cut lands. And the cut lands where it wants.
So what makes a good one? A few things:
- say what the page is actually about, early. the first 60 characters show up first and get read most
- don’t repeat the title. you get ~160 characters; don’t spend half of them saying the same thing
- give a reason to click. “learn more”, “get the answer”, “stop guessing” — a tiny push goes a long way
And check how it actually looks. Our meta description checker shows you the real Google preview, cuts your text where Google would cut it, and tells you if you’re too short, in the sweet spot, or writing a small essay nobody will finish reading. Type a draft, look at the preview, fix it, done.
It’s a two-minute habit that makes your links earn their clicks. Or you can let Google write the description for you — it will, and it won’t ask what you think.
Hero photo: Lyn Lomasi, CC-BY 2.0, via Flickr.