Grasping Good Google Snippets}

Grasping Good Google Snippets

by

Lauren Hobson

If youre like many web users, you may not even know what a Google snippet is, how it should be structured, or even why you should care. But when it comes to optimizing your small business web site, its definitely worth knowing what a Google snippet really is, and what you can do to make sure it is structured properly so you can improve your web sites performance in the search engine results.

A Google snippet is the descriptive text that displays right after the title (the blue, underlined link) on the search engine results page. A snippet is displayed as black text, and sits right above the URL link, which is displayed in green:

Additional elements you may see in a Google snippet include:

* Ellipses at the beginning of the snippet indicates the text is an excerpt from a larger block of text

* Ellipses at the end of a snippet indicates that the text was cut off after 156 characters, which is the limit that Google will display in a snippet

* In the case of discussion forums or articles, you may see a light gray line of text before the snippet that gives specific information, e.g., 1 post 1 author Last post: Mar 24

* Words that are bold correspond to the search term(s) entered by the user doing the search

So where does Google get the snippet text?

There are basically three places where Google looks to find snippet text; 1) from your meta description in the page code, 2) from the sites listing in the Open Directory Project (an authoritative web directory edited by humans), and 3) the text content of the page. It is even possible that Google could take text from a combination of these sources, depending on other criteria in the Google algorithm.

Given a choice, most of us would rather have a say in what gets displayed in our snippets, rather than leaving it up to Google to decide. The best case would be to have Google use your meta description as the snippet text, since you have complete control over the contents of this text. But how can you influence Google to use your meta description, instead of looking elsewhere for snippet text? Although there is no sure-fire way to make Google do anything, there are some things you can do to improve your chances:

1. Write unique, individual meta descriptions for each page of your site

2. Use well-researched, relevant keywords in your meta description

3. Make sure the rest of your page is accurately optimized to use your keywords enough to be helpful, but not too much to be considered spamming

4. Dont use a long string of keywords or repeat content inside your tag

5. Use descriptions that are well-written and make use of your keywords, yet still make sense to humans

According to Googles Webmaster Blog, Google often prefers to display meta descriptions as snippet text, since it tends to give searchers a good idea of what the page is about. However, if your meta descriptions are low-quality, spammy, or dont accurately reflect the contents of the page, Google is not very likely to use it as the snippet text on a search results page.

By writing well-optimized, high-quality meta descriptions for your web pages, you not only improve the chances that Google will look to your own meta data first, you also have a little more control over what searchers will see each time your snippets are displayed in the Google search results.

Lauren Hobson, President of Five Sparrows, LLC, has more than 16 years of experience in small business technology writing, marketing, and web site design and development. Five Sparrows provides professional website, marketing, and social networking services to small businesses and non-profits at affordable prices, giving clients access to customized services that meet both their needs and their budgets. More at www.fivesparrows.com. Copyright 2010, Five Sparrows. All Rights Reserved.

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