Description meta...?

[Mr Ruff]

Hi,

As it stands the company I work for offers a "Free" teaser/taster that they then upsell/cross sell from. This is now being changed from being "Free" to being charged for, effectively anyway, it has been disguised slightly but essentialy money will now change hands as opposed to before, no money changing hands...

As it stands our description meta says "Free" but obviously with the imminent change this will now not be true. I have just been told the description meta is not used anymore, which was what I was hoping to change and influence our description tag in the serps with? If this is true... how can I make sure we don't damage all the good work we have done getting top three places by conversion dropping through the floor because it may be perceived we are lieing in our listings when people arrive at the site and have to transact to get what is described as free in the description?

Any pointers greatly received!

[jimbeetle]

Well, for Google, the meta description is not used for ranking (as far as we know), but is used in certain instances to form the snippets that appear in the results. There are a variety of factors Google considers when pulling snippets so it's sometimes difficult to give exact examples. One instance in which G will usually return the meta description as the snippet is when the search query exactly matches a phrase in the description. So, if the query is [free widget trial] and the description includes that phrase it is likely that the meta description will be used as the snippet.

Removing "free" from the meta description should not affect rankings, as again, the description is not used for ranking purposes. I'd definitely take a look at the search terms by which folks are currently finding the site; if "free" is one of the driving terms you'll have to come up with a strategy to replace the traffic lost from the change.

[Mr Ruff]

JB,

I was just worried about saying one thing in the description and then the prospect discovering we meant another when they land... And... not actually being able to influence this description (or at least have as much influence as I could...)

I'm working strictly on the principle of repeating my description tag on page...

Thanks for your post :0)

[metasynman]

If you're not offering a "free" widget anymore, I'd definitely look into removing it from your content (including meta description). While it may not adversely affect your rankings, it could cause an issue with conversions. If someone searches for your widgets and thinks they're free, they'll click to your site and generate traffic but immediately leave when they don't actually find something free. This will effectively lower your average visit time and could result in losing ranking points for your site.

Bottom line, stick with relevant content in both your page content and meta tag content and you should do fine in both rankings AND conversions.

[Mr Ruff]

I agree - Conversion is more important to me.

[beu]

I'm working strictly on the principle of repeating my description tag on page...

You don't want to repeat your meta description across the site or even sections of your site. While meta descriptions may not be used in ranking on Google according to Google, meta description duplication can cause harm. Each page should be unique and so should it's description.

:)

[Mr Ruff]

Page specific descriptions... agreed... thanks :D