The Description Meta Tag Is For Descriptions

That title is about as simple as I can put it. I also like to call the description meta tag, my selling tag. Picture it as a 160 character Twitter post. Describe and sell the surfer on what they will find on that particular page. If it is the home page, tell them what they will find on the entire site. If you are reviewing and selling XWZ brown widgets on a page, form it up in the description.

Now just using the description tag does not guarantee ranking higher, in fact, the search engines seem to be moving farther away from it as a ranking factor. Many pages, especially with Wordpress rank well without the description meta tag even being included. The SERPS have been pulling the most relevant text from the page to show under the listing in most cases for a while, but it is good to have that tag filled out for returned searches that DO find it as the best match and most relevant text. The search engines have been ignoring the meta keyword tag for a while, but I still fill it out as well, it takes 3 seconds to do.

Have a good look at your current description meta tags on your sites. Is every page DESCRIBING and selling what is on that page? Great descriptions may entice a surfer to click your link in the search results instead of your competitors ranked a few spots ahead of you. Just because it is losing it's relevance for ranking, does not mean it is a useless tag. Any edge you may get is an edge regardless of how small it may be.

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