Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Description Meta Tag

The Description Meta Tag exists to provide an overview or summary of what you will find on the current page of your web site. This element serves multiple purposes in that it can effect your Search Engine Page Ranking and that if present it is also displayed in Search Results to provide search users with a brief summary of what can be found on the web pages listed. This summary displayed can greatly increase your click-through rate of your web-page leading to more traffic, more links, and a higher page ranking.

As always when it comes to SEO practices it is important to keep in mind that any and all content needs to be written or created for the end user and not targeted at Search Engines. This means that yes you will want to have keywords in your description but you do not want to have your description tag simply be a list of keywords. Below are some basic guidelines for creating Search Engine Optimized Description tags that are user friendly.

  • Keep the description short. The typical guideline is to keep the description text to 1-2 sentences or up to 160 characters, however use as much space as needed to provide the overview of what is to be found on your site.
  • While writing the text try to include keywords that are found within the content of the page or that will be used by searchers to find your page.
  • Don’t simply copy and paste text from your existing page content. Use this area to intrigue potential viewers and to provide additional slightly different content.

Meta Tag Format

<meta name=”description” content=”Your User Friendly Search Engine Optimized text here”>

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