Fun and profit with the Google Snippet Trick: Three Easy Tips
Creating the meta description tag can be a big bummer to SEO copywriters and marketers. On one hand, the meta description is the place for a marketing statement. It’s the verbiage that’s supposed to make your site stand out on the search engine results page.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. More often than not, instead of the submitted description, Google displays a “snippet” of text that appears around the search term. Yes, it’s still important to create a unique description anyway — but just know that Google won’t always use it.Relax. This is a situation that you can (kind of) control. You just have to play by Google’s rules. The key is using your keyphrases in a very specific way that increases the probability of a good description — even if it is in a snippet form. So, you could transform something like this:
Into something like this:
Here’s how to do it:
1. Focus on your top two keyphrases only. You can use the Google Snippet trick with other keyphrases if it flows within the writing — it’s just not as easy.
2. Use your most important keyphrase in your headline. No, this doesn’t mean that you write a crappy headline. As we’ll discuss in a future post, headlines should be benefit-rich, customer-savvy and oh-so enticing. Doing it right will help your conversions. Really.
3. Use your second most important keyphrase in your first or second sentence. Again, you’ll want a benefit statement as close to the keyphrase as you can get it. If a benefit statement won’t work, try to include a call-to-action. The key is to have highly-compelling verbiage around the keyphrase as much as possible.Be warned — the Google Snippet Trick doesn’t always work. But it works often enough (and is easy enough to do,) that implementation is a snap. And heck, it allows you to somewhat control a previous uncontrollable situation (what Google includes as the description.) What could be better?
Thanks to Disa Johnson who gave a shout-out to the Google Snippet Trick during a SearchMarketingNow.com Webcast.
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Pingback by SEO Copywriting | 10 SEO copywriting myths — March 6, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
Very useful information
I see there are realy good tips. I am going to use some of them
Comment by Stronghold Crusader — April 16, 2008 @ 2:58 am
Hi, Stronghold. Thanks for your comment – and please let us know how the tips work for you!
Comment by Heather — April 16, 2008 @ 8:29 am
Great thread! , i like these tips, its looks that i knew just small part of it.
Comment by Jobs — April 24, 2008 @ 8:32 am
These are very useful tips. I could not figure out how Google decides what to include in the snippets. This helps to control it.
Comment by onetop web design — January 2, 2010 @ 2:48 pm
it was great article..i like it
Comment by masterGOmaster — January 8, 2010 @ 7:34 am
Ah…we were just in a client meeting tryign to explain why it is sometimes Google pulls from the META DESCRIPTION and why sometimes they pull from some of the 1st text seen on the site’s actual text.
This really helps in controlling the snippet that searches see. Thanks Disa and Heather!
Comment by Ryan Walden — May 26, 2010 @ 8:50 am
Hey Heather! Excellent tip! I’ve experimented with some RDFa and other methods that Google has suggested with not much luck. I think they are only used in certain situations but I see where this may be a technique to go with the other RDFa for better results.
Comment by Terry Van Horne SEO Training Dojo — May 26, 2010 @ 9:31 am
Thanks, Terry, for your comment – great to hear from you!
(and for those folks who don’t know Terry, he’s one of the original “old guard” of SEO – nice guy – and brilliant, too!)
Comment by Heather — May 27, 2010 @ 10:16 am
You are very, very welcome! Glad the post was helpful!
Comment by Heather — May 27, 2010 @ 10:17 am