The description that appears on a search results page has the most significant impact on the decision to click a result. Optimized descriptions help you to increase the number of clicks that your listings get. Read this article to learn how to get more clicks with optimized descriptions.

Google will rewrite the description of your web page if they find that the meta description of your pages is not good enough. For that reason, it is important to create good meta descriptions:

1. Keep your description short

Although Google sometimes displays longer descriptions, it's usually best to use short descriptions that do not use more than 160 characters. The meta description length on mobile for snippets with a publication date is between 95 to 105 characters. Quickly get to the point in your descriptions.

2. Answer questions in the description

Many searches on Google are related to a particular question. Try to answer that question in the web page description. Google also uses pages that answer questions for featured snippet listings. Remove a small part of the answer from the description so that people have a reason to click your listing.

3. Be emotional

Include emotional words in your meta descriptions. 'Powerful' descriptions with 'enormous' benefits and 'unparalleled' results will get you more clicks. Try to create curiosity, joy, urgency, etc.

4. Tell your website visitors what to do

A strong call-to-action in the description text can lead to many more clients. For example, use sentences such as 'Get your free trial now' or 'You can save $10 if you order today' in your description.

5. Use different descriptions on different pages

Each page on your web page should have its own description. Using the same description on all pages is not a good idea. In that case, it's better not to use the meta description tag at all. Use targeted descriptions on your web pages to maximize the number of clicks that your listing will get.

6. Try to get listed with a rich result

Rich results are results with images, ratings, additional links, etc. These results stand out on Google's results page. To get listed as a rich result, the page must contain structured data code. The Rich Results Creator tool in SEOprofiler helps you to create structured data code quickly and easily.

"John Mueller said in a webmaster hangout on YouTube that the anchor text of a link is more important than the text around the link. [...] [Page content is] something we do definitely take into account but it’s very secondary. […] The anchor text is really the primary thing."

Editor's note: Analyze your anchor links and the link context with the Link Profiler tool.

"Stars come from structured data. Whether they show is automatically determined. It's not guaranteed. Content might be blocked if it fails to meet guidelines. site: might trigger differently, but in your example, those are actually technically two different sites."

"Google's John Mueller answers how Google handles bare URL inbound links that do not have an anchor text. [...]  From that point of view it’s a normal link but we don’t have any context there."

Editor's note: Analyze your anchor links and the link context with the Link Profiler tool.

"Google’s John Mueller said on Twitter that Google will pick the HTTPS version of your website if it is available with both HTTPS and HTTP. Having both versions isn’t a problem for SEO, but you should fix it for security reasons. [...]

The website audit tool in SEOprofiler checks many things that have an impact on the rankings of your web pages on Google and other search engines. It also checks the security settings of your website."