I'm trying to come up with a description for the meta description tag on the index page

Hello,
I’m not sure if this is the right section for my question. I searched for something specific to SEO, but the other section related to SEO was for WordPress, so I decided to post here.

I have a personal website that serves more as a blog where I share some ideas about Linux and Emacs in general. These are the main topics I write about, but I sometimes include off-topic content, like music or anything else I find interesting. It’s not an expert information blog, it’s just my personal ideas. I was thinking of using this meta description for the Index page and would appreciate your feedback on whether it would be good from a SEO standpoint:

 <meta name="description"
       content="A personal website focused on technology, Linux, Emacs, and a variety of other topics.">

I haven’t used the first person singular. I think this is the description that will appear when my name is searched on Google, the domain being my full name.

I would appreciate any suggestions. Thank you!

Hi, it sounds good to me, but I am not much into my SEO. However, what I would do is to use ChatGPT. You can feed it your page content, give it a list of the topics you cover on your blog and ask it to generate the meta description for you (or 5 if you want to compare). Then you can discuss with it whether what it generated follows best practices, what the best practices are, if it even makes sense to use a meta name="description" tag etc. GPT3 is free to use, all you need is an account.

2 Likes

BTW, if you do use Chat, I would be interested to hear what it recommended as the final meta tag.

1 Like

Thank you for your response. I used GPT in my initial post, so that was the suggested recommendation. However, I wanted to ask for feedback since I don’t fully trust AI-generated content. That said, I think the text works well as a general description, so I went with it for now.

1 Like

Ah ok. Got it.

So in that case, the meta description sounds fine to me (also as a native speaker). When generating the meta tags for SitePoint articles, while that wasn’t my responsibility directly, we always looked to make sure that they give a good description of the page content while including relevant keywords. I think there is also a max length to be aware of, right? (before the content gets truncated).

That said, I just did some checking and it seems that Google doesn’t always use this tag to generate the search result snippet.

Google will sometimes use the tag from a page to generate a snippet in search results, if we think it gives users a more accurate description than would be possible purely from the on-page content.

I also found these guidelines by Google, which you have probably seen, but might be worth a read if not: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet#meta-descriptions

Also, would you mind posting a link to your blog? I’d be interested to see what kind of Linux content you have.

Yup. That is what should happen.

Anyway, TL;DR: Nice description. You’ll be fine.

Sorry for the late reply. My blog is working, but I haven’t posted any relevant content yet. https://zoltankiraly.com I’ve managed to set up almost all the features thanks to the help I got on this forum, and I’m very thankful for that. I know the page looks bad, this is all I can do for now with the design. I’m not a designer. I like the color magenta. It might seem a bit girly, but I mix it with neutral colors to tone it down. I wanted something different, and since this is a personal blog, I don’t think it matters that much. :grinning:

Currently, I’m working on setting up a Wacom Intuos tablet on FreeBSD. If I succeed, I plan to document the process. I will be sharing updates on my system setup as I go. I’m using FreeBSD as my daily driver for about two months now (picture below), it’s a bit of a niche operating system, but I see that as an advantage. I can create content that isn’t widely available yet, which means anyone searching for it will likely come across my work on Google. I have a setup on GitHub that now consists of a shell script. When I run .config.sh, it sets up the system for desktop use. GitHub - zoliky/freebsd-config.

Very good. Clean and pure :slight_smile:


Thanks for the update. It’s good to hear your blog is live, and I think documenting your Wacom setup on FreeBSD will be valuable content, especially given its niche. IMO, the magenta looks fine—nothing wrong with some personality in a personal blog! Keep at it, and best of luck with your setup scripts (something I should really get round to doing).

Your approach to posting your question is perfectly fine, and it’s great that you’re considering SEO for your personal blog! A well-crafted meta description can significantly impact your site’s visibility in search results. When you share your proposed meta description, ensure it includes relevant keywords related to Linux and Emacs while also capturing the essence of your blog’s personal and diverse nature. Keeping it concise and inviting will encourage clicks. I look forward to seeing your draft!

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.