Appreciation post: That client in Seattle who told me my meta descriptions were trash

I had a client in Seattle six months ago who straight up said my meta descriptions read like robot spam and no human would ever click them. She made me rewrite every single one to start with a question or a pain point, and now my click-through rates are up about 30% across the board. Has anyone else had a piece of feedback that totally shifted how they write on-page SEO?

4 comments

4 Comments

morganl719d ago

Hmm, I'm not totally sold on pain points being a magic bullet honestly. I had a client who insisted on that approach and I saw my bounce rate go up because the questions I was asking got people who didn't actually need the service clicking through but then leaving once they realized it wasn't for them. Also sometimes you just need to state clearly what something does without trying to be clever, people searching for specific solutions already know they have a problem so leading with a question can feel kinda pushy or salesy.

alex8203d ago

Right because nothing says "trustworthy" like a pop up yelling "ARE YOU TIRED OF BEING MISERABLE?" before you even know what they're selling. Always fun watching the analytics tank while someone insists their clever angle is working.

noahwood9d ago

Same thing happened to me, switching to pain points doubled my organic traffic in two months.

max_schmidt779d ago

Heard a similar take from a marketing podcast recently, they stressed how pain points hit people's emotions way harder than just listing features. Makes sense when you think about it, nobody cares what your product does until they feel the problem it solves. Good to see the strategy working for you too.