Can I use the first sentence of my page content as a meta description tag as well?

[paulinap1983]

I just want to copy my content on the page and use the first or as well the second sentence of the content self for my meta description tag. Is that OK? Or should the Meta description tag be different?

[smokin_ace]

I think nobody will blame me if I tell you YES, because until now it is not proven fact that the appearance of your keywords in meta description will make an impact on your rankings. However I will recommend two things:

1. If you use any type of CMS (Joomla or Werdpress) to build your website then you can download the plugin which generates the meta description automaticaly.

2. Still it's better if you will include the targeted keywords from page to meta description, and even if you check SeoMoz on-page optimization, those guys are recommend to do this.

3. Remember that attractive and interesting Meta Description might highlight you among your competitors and bring you additional traffic even if you are not TOP1.

Hope that it was clear.

[oline123]

Hi Paulina.

I agree with Ruslan in terms of whether it is OK from a ranking perspective.

However, it is critical to remember that your meta data has another important objective - to entice searchers to click through to your page.

A well written meta description makes a considerable difference to click-through rates.

Consider spending as long on your page meta data as you would when trying to write an effective Adwords Ad.

In consideration of this objective (maximising click through rates), you may find that the first sentence or two of your body copy would not suffice as an effective meta description.

cheers, David.

[paulinap1983]

Ruslan, Thank you so much for your answer. Do you know by the chance the name of the plug in I can install for Wordpress (that's how my site is build in).