How unique does the description and titles of each state`s page need to be from other state`s?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Seth J. Alberty: Unique content question:
  
  Scenario: I'm building a site that sells my map prints and posters. ; Say I have a cool map style and it is available for each of the 50 states, and each state map gets its own unique page (50 unique pages).
  
  Question: How unique does the description and titles of each state's page need to be from other state's?
  
  Option 1:
  "This ultra-sleek map of (state name) will look amazing on your wall and help you learn (state name) geography too!"....
  The text would be repeated exactly the same on each of the 50 pages, but with the unique state name substituted in.
  
  OR...
  
  Option 2:
  "This ultra-cool map of (state 1) will look spectacular..."
  "This super-cool map of (state 2) will look great..."
  "This super-sleek map of (state 3) will look incredible..."
  (you get the point: each state's copy is slightly different)
  
  Option 2 is a TON more work. ; The customer wouldn't mind either way.
  
  From an SEO standpoint, will Option 2 actually help each of my pages be seen as "more unique" and thus ranked higher?
  
  Any help would be, well, helpful!
• 
  Patrick Coombe: Hi +Seth J. Alberty ;- that is a really great question. It is great that you are putting so much care into the small details of your site. Those details are really what matters!
  
  Personally I would stay away from option 1. Not just because it could be perceived badly from the algorithm, but it isn't so great for user experience. Be glad you only have 50 pages, some people have 50k!!
  
  Having great meta tags won't help your SEO by themselves, but they are a piece of the puzzle and will no doubt give you a nice boost.
  
  Google Webmaster Tool will alert you if you have any duplicate tags and there are some great SEO tools out there as well that will scan your site as well. You can also run your site through Screaming Frog and sort by meta tag to view them that way
  
  (just so you can see them all at once)
  
  Good luck and feel free to reach out to me I love cartography!
• 
  Seth J. Alberty: Hi Patrick, Thanks so much for your feedback. ; I'm also a little concerned about option 2 (and not only the extra time to re-write the same basic description 50 different ways)...
  
  I'm mostly concerned the algorithm might consider it shady practice to have essentially the same content 50 times and worded slightly differently. ; How different should each of the contents be from each other? ; Is it ok to just switch around some adjectives and sentence order, or should each of the 50 descriptions be completely uniquely written from scratch?
  
  Thanks again
• 
  Patrick Coombe: +Seth J. Alberty great question, they really should be completely unique. With Google's newest algorithms you really don't want to take the chance with something like this. 
• 
  Patrick Coombe: And believe me this is all I do every day so I've seen every trick in the book. I know it sounds like s lot but it will be worth it. You don't want to be on the forum asking how to remove a penalty!!!