SEO: Meta Description Tag

Meta tags convey behind-the-scenes information relevant to the on visible information. Some search engines ignore them, others don't.

To continue with our library metaphor, the first thing you do when you've picked a book off the shelf is to read the summary on the back. This is the equivalent to our description.

Be brief, exact, and relevant to your page content.

Just target one keyphrase

Above all, focus on the page keyphrase - which should also be your page filename - and leave other keyphrases for other pages.

If your page is targeting the keyphrase 'Green Widgets' a good targeted description would be:

"Green Widgets for sale at Wonderful-Widgets.com, solve all your financial problems
with our best green widget yet"

rather than a 1-size fits all description such as:

"Green Widgets for sale, information about widgets, and widget articles"

We'll save the phrase "information about widgets" for the information-about-widgets.html page (which, unsurprisingly, has nothing but information about widgets).

Example

<html>
<head>
<title>Green Widgets</title>
<META name="description" content="Green Widgets for sale from Wonderful-Widgets.com, your no.1 resource for green widgets!">
<META name="keywords" content="green widgets, widgets for sale">
</head>

<body>

<H1>Green Widgets</H1>

<p>Green widgets first made an appearance in 1920, when the first green widget was
discovered by Sir Randolf Widget III.

</body>
</html>

	Do... put the meta descriptions and keywords tags directly after the <title> tag remember the Meta description shows up in search engine results (although Google may chop it up a bit) jazz it up a bit - the description will appear in the search result, so make it a compelling call to action
	Don't... fall into the trap of covering many keywords and keyphrases keyword "stuff" (ie. repeat your keyword more than twice) use more than 200-250 characters in the description don't use brand and company names without prior permission - you can get sued