{"id":11859,"date":"2019-11-29T11:04:16","date_gmt":"2019-11-29T10:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordlift.io\/blog\/en\/?p=11859"},"modified":"2021-11-03T14:54:18","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T13:54:18","slug":"write-meta-descriptions-bert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordlift.io\/blog\/en\/write-meta-descriptions-bert\/","title":{"rendered":"How to write meta descriptions using BERT"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\t\t\t\t\tIf you are confused about meta descriptions in SEO<\/a>, why they are important and how to nail it with <\/span>the help of <\/span><\/i>artificial intelligence<\/span><\/i><\/a>, this article is for you.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nIf you are eager to start experimenting with an AI<\/a>-writer, read the full article. At the end, I will give you a script to help you write meta descriptions on scale using BERT<\/a>: Google<\/a>\u2019s pre-trained, unsupervised language model that has recently gained great momentum in the SEO community after both, <\/span>Google<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>BING<\/span><\/a> announced that they use it for providing more useful results.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nI used to underestimate the importance of meta descriptions myself: after all Google will use it only on 35.9% of the cases (according to <\/span>a <\/span>Moz analysis<\/span><\/a> from last year by the illustrious <\/span>@dr_pete<\/span><\/a>). In reality, these brief snippets of text, <\/span>greatly help to entice more users to your website <\/b>and, indirectly, might even <\/span>influence your ranking<\/b> thanks to higher<\/span> click-through-rate (CTR)<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nWhile Google can overrule the meta descriptions added in the HTML<\/a> of your pages, if you properly align:<\/span>\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. the main intent<\/i><\/b> of the user (the query you are targeting),\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  2. the title of the page<\/i><\/b> and<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t
  3. the meta description<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nThere are many possibilities to improve the CTR on Google\u2019s result pages. In the course of this article we will investigate the following aspects and, since it\u2019s a long article, feel free to jump to the section that interests you the most — code is available at the end.<\/span>\r\n

    What are meta descriptions?<\/span><\/h2>\r\nAs usual I tend to \u201cask\u201d\u00a0 \u201cexperts\u201d online a definition to get started, and with <\/span>a simple query<\/span><\/a> on Google, we can get this definition from our friends at WooRank:<\/span>\r\n\r\nMeta descriptions<\/b><\/span> are HTML tags<\/b> that appear in the head section of a web page. The content within the <\/span>tag<\/b> provides a <\/span>description<\/b><\/span> of what the page and its content are about. In the context of SEO, meta descriptions<\/b><\/span> should be around 160 characters long.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"meta<\/span>\r\n\r\nHere\u2019s an example of what a meta description usually looks like (from that same article):<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"meta\r\n

    How long should your meta description be?<\/span><\/h2>\r\nWe want to be, as with any other content on our site, authentic, conversational and user-friendly. Having said that, in 2020, you will want to stick to the <\/span>155-160 characters limit<\/b><\/span> (this corresponds to 920 pixels<\/b><\/span>). We also want to keep in mind that the \u201coptimal\u201d length might change based on the query of the user. This means that you should really do your best in the first 120 characters<\/b><\/span> and think in terms of creating a meaningful chain by linking the query, the title tag and the meta description<\/b><\/span>. In some cases, within this chain it is also very important to consider the role of the breadcrumbs<\/b>. As in the example above from WooRank I can quickly see that the definition is coming from an educational page of their site: this fits very well with my information request.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\r\n

    What meta descriptions should we focus on?<\/span><\/h2>\r\nSEO is a process<\/b><\/span>: we need to set our goals, analyze the data we\u2019re starting with, improve our content, and measure the results. There is no point in looking at a large website and saying, I need to write<\/a> a gazillion of meta descriptions since they are all missing. It would simply be a waste of time.\r\n\r\nBesides the fact that in some cases – <\/span>we might decide not to add a meta description at all.<\/b> For example, when a page covers different queries and the text is already well structured we might leave it to Google to craft the best snippet for each super query (they are super good at it ?). We need to <\/span>look at the critical pages<\/b><\/span> we have – let\u2019s not forget that writing a good meta description is just like writing an ad copy \u2014 driving clicks is not a trivial game.\r\n\r\nAs a rule of thumb I prefer to focus my attention on:\u00a0<\/span>\r\n