by Jon Wuebben

The “snippet” is the text that appears underneath the title on the search engine results page. Some people read snippets, others scan them, and some don’t look at them at all. But whoever you are dealing with, this little group of words can get people to click on the link to your web page/site, if it’s written well. With Google and Yahoo, they usually just take a small chunk of text from your page and use that as the snippet. Google’s is usually shorter than Yahoo’s, and Yahoo will many times use the description tag.

So, one way you can influence snippets is by writing solid copy on the page: benefits oriented, keyword rich copy that can convert as well as be great description tag copy.

How else can you influence your snippet? For Yahoo, place your keyword phrases together near the beginning of the description. For Google, do the same thing, just in the body text, or main copy section of the page. How long are snippets usually? Around 150 characters.

One last secret: place a benefit statement next to your keyword phrase in the snippet. Example for the keyword phrase “art supplies”:

The most extensive art supplies online

…Stop searching. All of your painter brushes, oil based paints and other art supplies are available in one place. Free shipping! www.NelsonBrothersArtSupplies.com/ 35K – Cached

Free Shipping is of course, your benefit statement/call to action.
Try this technique out!

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