The Conversion Value of Well Crafted Description Tags in SERPs

Law firms spend alot of time and money optimizing their websites and blogs to appear at the top of Google's results displayed in response to relevant queries. But appearing at the top of the results is not the end of the story. Rather, once links to your law firm website or blog are appearing at the top of the "SERPs" (Search Engine Result Pages), you need to entice people to click on those links (much like good ad copy is what gets people to click on Google ads in the right sidebar).

Getting searchers to click on your link in a SERP involves crafting compelling title and description tags. We've previously blogged about writing enticing title tags using copy that appeals to self-interest, has a news angle, or promotes curiosity (as per SEO guru Aaron Wall).

As usability guru Todd Follansbee explains, meta description tags are equally important since they help users determine relevancy, and set expectations as to what they'll see when they click through. Description tags can be especially conspicuous because Google may boldface the searcher's keyword in the snippet. As a result, warns Follansbee, if you don't manage your description tags, you are losing relevant traffic and the conversions that would result. A good law firm website content management system will allow you to modify description tags on a page-by-page basis.

Follansbee notes that you can't always control what copy Google will display in a SERP with your link, but if there's a well-written description tag, Google is likely to use it.

After the jump, Follansbee's guidelines for writing good description tags

• Don't use the same description for all pages.
• You don't need to write full sentences, but make sure the phrases you use describe specific page content in a compelling and accurate way.
• Don't mislead with copy that creates false expectations about what viewers will see if they click.
• As Aaron Wall recommended for title tags, appeal to self-interest by focusing on the benefits of what the searcher will find if they click through
• Don't use more than about 20 to 25 words or 155 characters (including spaces), which is the most that Google currently seems to display.