• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. On-Page Optimization
        4. Adding CTAs in Meta Descriptions

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Adding CTAs in Meta Descriptions

        On-Page Optimization
        6
        6
        3472
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • Donsimong
          Donsimong last edited by

          Whats peoples opinions about putting Call To Cations CTAs in Meta Descriptions, and does this ever occur a Google penalty, as it can sometimes look a bit clickbait.

          For example I am looking at a site which currently has this meta description

          Meta Description: For more information on our sustainable, natural office furniture, click here to get in contact.

          Is this kind of description ranking unfriendly, Ive seen them used a lot but IM not a big fan of this myself.

          Any thoughts?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • sarahwalsh
            sarahwalsh last edited by

            It's worth adding a call to action to a meta description because it can help improve the CTR.

            Our business, sells garden offices, and we added new meta titles, and descriptions, which were much better written, the CTR improved.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ClaytonJ
              ClaytonJ last edited by

              CTA's in MD's work, so we use them often, but usually at the end.  So a full MD with details about the page and then a CTA at the end.  "Contact us today for a free Quote" etc.  But I agree with Joe I also try and use the targetted customer query once in the MD together with synonyms if it works...

              Hope that assists.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • GastonRiera
                Gaston Riera last edited by

                Hi there!

                Improving Meta descriptions in order to get higher CTR won't be penalized by Google unless you do something black hat or include some forbidden words.
                My experience showed:
                1- There is always a set of title+meta description that can optimize CTR for a single page. Remember to focus on the main keyword, as a page can rank for several search terms.
                2- Improving CTR doesn't always get better rankings, but hell it brings more traffic! That's what you should be aiming, not only better rankings.

                As Nozzle said, experiment carefully and make one change at a time.

                Hope it helps.
                Best luck.
                Gaston

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • jasongmcmahon
                  jasongmcmahon last edited by

                  IMHO use meta descriptions to sell what's on the webpage, learn from the good Google Ads copy, including CTA's isn't necessary I personally focus on keyword insertion instead.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Nozzle
                    Nozzle last edited by

                    Meta descriptions do not affect your rankings whatsoever. Well...at least not directly. Some argue that higher click through rates can increase your rankings.

                    Whether that is true or not, you want to write meta descriptions that do entice people to click on your listing so that you get more traffic from the SERPs and a lot of times  including a call to action can increase your click through rate.

                    My suggestion is to test different meta descriptions on pages that have good rankings until you find the one that has the highest click through rate. You can monitor a specific page's click through rate in Google Search Console.

                    Keep track of when Google re-crawls your page so you know what dates to analyze when trying to figure out the CTR of each meta description test. Keep in mind that title tag changes will affect your CTR as well so only change one or the other at a time to get an accurate reading.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    Browse Questions

                    Explore more categories

                    • Moz Tools

                      Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                    • SEO Tactics

                      Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                    • Community

                      Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                    • Digital Marketing

                      Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                    • Research & Trends

                      Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                    • Support

                      Connect on product support and feature requests.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • webdropyyc

                      Need help with Meta tags generator

                      meta tags seo

                      Hello, I am doing SEO for my business website. I am trying to generate Meta Tags here
                      https://webdrop.ca/seo-tools/meta-tag-generator What should I enter for "Search engines should revisit this page after ". We are not going to change content on daily basis. 7 Days or 30 days are good enough?

                      On-Page Optimization | | webdropyyc
                      0
                    • 21centuryweb

                      Duplicate 'meta title' issue (AMP & NON-AMP Pages)

                      how to fix duplicate meta title issue in amp and non-amp pages? example.com
                      example.com/amp We have set the 'meta title' in desktop version & we don't want to change the title for AMP page as we have more than 10K pages on the website. ----As per SEMRUSH Tool---- ABOUT THIS ISSUE It is a bad idea to duplicate your title tag content in your first-level header. If your page’s <title>and <h1> tags match, the latter may appear over-optimized to search engines. Also, using the same content in titles and headers means a lost opportunity to incorporate other relevant keywords for your page.</p> <p><strong>HOW TO FIX IT</strong></p> <p>Try to create different content for your <title> and <h1> tags.<br /><br />this is what they are recommending, for the above issue we have asked our team to create unique meta and post title for desktop version but what about AMP page?<br /><br />Please help!</p></title>

                      On-Page Optimization | | 21centuryweb
                      0
                    • RezStreamSEO

                      Meta Title Pipes and Spacing

                      I've been doing optimization on a clients website and want to make sure I'm maximizing my characters. Does anyone have any feedback on the spacing in between the pipes ( | ) ? IE: Internet Marketing Company | Denver SEO | Brand Name Do the spaces before and after the pipes play a role in whether the search engines can distinguish the keyword or is it all considered one word if there is no spaces such as: IE: Internet Marketing Company|Denver SEO|Brand Name Any information will be super helpful.  Thanks for your help!

                      On-Page Optimization | | RezStreamSEO
                      0
                    • royRR

                      Selling Products with a similar meta description

                      Wondering if anyone can help when selling similar products with very similar meta description and product descriptions in general. Have around 500 products - a lot of products have around 10-20 products which are very similar only different is sizes and a maybe a few lines of text if that. Is this a problem in search engines? How does other ecommerce stores selling similar products solve this problem...

                      On-Page Optimization | | royRR
                      0
                    • seowhiskey

                      Can I use the same text in my meta description as I put in my post excerpt?

                      Hi, I'm just trying to understand the right way to optimise my blog posts and this is likely a dumb question... but to what extent should the text in my meta description differ from the text in my post excerpts? cheers, Andrew

                      On-Page Optimization | | seowhiskey
                      0
                    • PHDAustralia68

                      Missing meta descriptions on indexed pages, portfolio, tags, author and archive pages. I am using SEO all in one, any advice?

                      I am having a few problems that I can't seem to work out.....I am fairly new to this and can't seem to work out the following: Any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 1. I am missing alot of meta description tags. I have installed "All in One SEO" but there seems to be no options to add meta descriptions in portfolio posts. I have also written meta descriptions for 'tags' and whilst I can see them in WP they don't seem to be activated. 2. The blog has pages indexed by WP- called Part 2 (/page/2), Part 3 (/page/3) etc. How do I solve this issue of meta descriptions and indexed pages? 3. There is also a page for myself, the author, that has multiple indexes for all the blog posts I have written, and I can't edit these archives to add meta descriptions. This also applies to the month archives for the blog. 4. Also, SEOmoz tells me that I have too many links on my blog page (also indexed) and their consequent tags. This also applies to the author pages (myself ). How do I fix this? Thanks for your help 🙂 Regards Nadia

                      On-Page Optimization | | PHDAustralia68
                      0
                    • A Former User

                      Does keyword at the very front of meta description have impact?

                      I know that it is important to have your primary keyword target as the first word or two words of your title tag.  But what about your meta description tag? does it matter where they keyword is in the description tag?  I see a lot of other sites stuffing their keywords right at the front of the description tag and it looks somewhat unnatural.  What's your take? do you put the primary keyword as the first word or two words of your description tag?

                      On-Page Optimization | | A Former User
                      0
                    • jmansd

                      What does the "base href" meta tag do? For SEO and webdesign?

                      I have encounter the "base href" on one of my sites.  The tag is on every page and always points to the home URL.

                      On-Page Optimization | | jmansd
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    • Digital Marketers
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.