Product Description vs. Meta Description - Do I need both?

Question

I'm currently optimising my products to better rank on search engines. I previously didn't have unique product descriptions but I'm slowly getting through them, removing the manufacturer descriptions, and adding my own.

Now- what is the best way to approach meta-descriptions for these products?

Should I copy and paste a portion of the product descriptions into the meta description? Or, should I write a separate meta description? (which essentially means describing the same product twice). Or, should I leave the meta-description blank and hope that Google pulls my product description and uses that in the search results?

Thanks as always, you guys have always been super helpful.

Answer 1

Magento will fill the meta description for you.

You can change how that happens to automatically have some friendly snippet that reads well in the 150chrs of meta text.

You may want to put your efforts into semantic markup first. With that you get breadcrumbs in the search results and things like price recognised by the search engine. I would argue that this is more important than writing a gazillion descriptions if you are wanting to do what you can to improve search ranking.

Answer 2

Billy Hudson, Off course best way to write a separate meta description for each product.

Magento is provide meta description field for seo purpose.

Magento use descriptions field as meta description wherever product meta_description field is blank`. Product description field has been different place like on product detail page.but meta fields use only for seo case.

Product fields meta_description,meta_keywork and meta_title is very import for Seo Point of view.

See from where magento is set meta details

<meta name="description" content="product meta descrtiption fields/ product descriotion fields" />
<meta name="keywords" content="product meta key word fields" />