A good meta description serves one job: convincing searchers to click your result instead of the nine others on the page. Google doesn't use it for ranking, but click-through rate matters, so treat it like ad copy. Start with 150–160 characters. Google truncates around 920 pixels width, which translates to roughly 155–160 characters on desktop. Mobile cuts earlier. If you go long, frontload the critical hook so truncation doesn't kill your message. Include your primary keyword, but don't stuff it. Google bolds query matches in the SERP snippet, which draws the eye. If someone searches "Ottawa plumber emergency" and sees those words bolded in your description, you've earned half the battle. But forced repetition reads like spam and tanks trust. Answer the intent directly in the first sentence. If the query is "how much does SEO cost", don't open with "SEO is important for businesses." Open with "SEO costs $1,500–$10,000/month depending on competition and scope." Specificity wins. Add a micro-CTA or differentiator when space allows. "Free audit included" or "same-day service in Ottawa" or "no contracts" gives a reason to pick you. Avoid generic phrases like "learn more" or "click here"—they waste character budget. At Ottawa SEO, we write meta descriptions after the page is live and we see what queries it's actually ranking for. Google rewrites descriptions 60–70% of the time anyway, pulling text from the page that better matches the query. If your on-page copy is strong and semantically rich, Google often builds a better snippet than you would've written. So we optimize descriptions for high-volume branded and commercial queries where we want control, and let Google freestyle on informational long-tail. Test in Search Console: if your custom description has lower CTR than Google's rewrite, defer to the algorithm.