Optimising your website so that it ranks highly on Google is jumping the first hurdle in SEO. The next hurdle is ensuring that your search result displays in the best way possible to encourage users to click it over others.

To do this, you need to update your meta content for each page. Here’s a few ways to ensure your result stands out:

The title.

This is the stand out text for the user and needs to be keyword rich to try match the user’s search as best as possible. As a rough estimate, Google shows up to 70 characters of the title so you need to work out the best words and phrase to fit within this. Avoid keyword dumping though. Ensure it is a tangible sentence that is directed at the user’s potential needs.

The description.

Here you have a bit more room to explain yourself and the USPs of why the user should pick you over your rivals. You have up to around 150 characters here to grab the attention of the user. Do you have special offers? Unique products? What services do you offer that others don’t (free delivery, next day delivery etc.)?

The URL.

Rather than having a true URL (which can be cluttered and ugly at times), you can tidy up how your URL shows on Google. We would suggest adding breadcrumbs as this then shows keywords and and easy route through your site. Take a look at Google’s page on breadcrumbs for more info.

The extras.

You can set pages up to display more information when they show up on Google. For this you need to markup your pages so Google knows what information to pick up when it crawls through. This can include product reviews, prices and also stock levels.

You have to compete with links around yours and those are likely to be your direct industry competitors too. Adding more relevant but succinct key pieces of information easily advertises why users should choose you over them.