The ABC's of Internet Marketing

The meta description tag is another key element of on-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  The meta description tag appears as the two lines of text below your Title Tag when your company listing appears on a search engine results page (SERP). The meta description tag provides a brief description of your business and what your web page is about.

This tag used to be more influential in the search engine ranking process.  While it may not have the same impact as it once did in determining ranking, it is still a critical method to deliver your company's marketing message in more detail than available in the Title Tag, and influence searchers to click on your listing and come to your site, rather than the competition.

In the past, people would stuff the meta description tag with keywords to increase relevance for the search engines.  With search engine algorithms now much more sophisticated, the impact of the meta description tag has been reduced, but it is still very important for your human visitors and searchers.

Look at your description tag as the first opportunity you have to put your differentiated value proposition in front of potential visitors.  Make it compelling and descriptive, and be sure that each web page has a unique description tag to avoid any chance the search engines will conclude there is duplicate content on your pages. 

While it is true that Google generates it's own descriptions for your site based on the search phrase and content on your web page, there are still search engines that do incorporate the description tag in their algorithms--Ask.com, Alta Vista, and AllTheWeb are just a few.  Click here for more information about our Search Engine Optimization solutions.