Meta Description
The 140–160 character summary that appears under your page's title in search results.
What it is, exactly
When you search Google, each result has a blue title, a green URL, and a gray paragraph of text underneath. That gray paragraph is the meta description. It's a 140–160 character summary that the page's HTML declares via a `<meta name="description">` tag.
If you don't write one, Google guesses by pulling text from your page. Sometimes the guess is fine; often it's awful.
It doesn't affect ranking. It affects clicks.
Google has publicly confirmed that meta descriptions aren't a ranking factor. What they ARE is the single biggest influence on your click-through rate (CTR) from search results.
Two pages ranking at position 3 can have wildly different traffic depending on their meta description. If yours is generic and the competitor's is specific and benefit-driven, they win the click every time — and the traffic compounds.
How to write one that earns the click
Three rules:
1. Match search intent, not your brand pitch. The searcher typed a query. Your meta description should mirror that query and promise an answer.
2. Lead with the outcome, not the feature. "Create landing pages in 2 minutes" beats "A modern landing page platform for teams."
3. Use the full character budget, not less. Google truncates at ~160 chars; Bing around 140. Aim for 140 to be safe everywhere.
Example:
Bad: "Welcome to PageStrike, the leading AI platform for marketing teams."
Good: "Turn a photo and 2 lines into a ready-to-publish landing page. Copy, design, and AI images — done in under 2 minutes."
Related terms
Put it into practice.
PageStrike generates the whole thing — headline, CTA, hero, proof section — in about 2 minutes. You'll never have to write a hero section from scratch again.
Build your landing page →