Why You Should Always Avoid Using Duplicate Meta Descriptions

Meta descriptions are a brilliant SEO tool that can help to improve your click through rate and drive traffic to your site!

But are you giving them the attention that they deserve? We predict not! In this blog post, we explore the reasons why meta descriptions are crucial to driving traffic to your site and maximising conversion opportunities. But first thing’s first, what exactly is a meta description? Let’s delve in.

What is a meta description?

Put simply, a meta description is a concise summary that effectively showcases what your site is all about. Meta descriptions serve to entice users to click on your website, in addition to helping search engines understand what a particular web page consists of. Meta descriptions appear under the title tag in the search engines results pages (SERPs) and a well-crafted meta description can hugely improve click-through rates and ultimately drive more traffic to a website.

Whilst compelling meta descriptions encourage users to click on your website and increase chances of ranking highly within the SERPs, duplicated meta descriptions can have hugely negative implications for your website’s rankings, click through rate and overall success. Here are a few reasons why you should avoid using duplicate meta descriptions:

It can harm general SEO efforts

Search engines such as Google and Bing prefer unique and original content. Whilst you may not think that duplicate meta descriptions are the be-all and end-all, they can be perceived by search engine crawlers as a sign of low-quality content. When search engines crawl your site and find duplicate meta descriptions, it’s possible that they may rank your web pages lower in the SERPs as a result of this! We highly recommend writing unique meta descriptions (where possible), for every page of your website to avoid this.

It can confuse users

Duplicate meta descriptions can significantly harm the user experience and impact your click through rate as users have difficulty distinguishing between pages that have identical descriptions. Imagine entering a search term into Google and having to sift through multiple pages with the same descriptions, how would you know which to choose? Ultimately, this leads to frustration and a negative user experience which can ultimately hurt your brand’s reputation and lead to reduced clicks.

It can reduce your click-through rate

As previously mentioned, meta descriptions are often the first interaction that users have with your website when it appears in the SERPs. If the majority of your web pages have identical meta descriptions, users can easily assume that the pages are very similar or lacking in original content. Ultimately, this can discourage them from clicking on your website altogether and lead to many missed conversion opportunities.

Don’t fall into the trap of using duplicate meta descriptions. Instead, take the time to craft unique and compelling descriptions for every page of your website. By doing so, you can significantly improve your click-through rate, attract more visitors and ultimately boost your overall success.

Contact us and we’ll help you improve your search engine rankings with our top-notch SEO services!