SEO Tips: What's It All About? The Value of the Description Tag

While your title tag may be the most important element of your page (see title tags), your description meta tag runs a close second. Used as the text in many search engine results, it could mean the difference between someone visiting your site or someone else's. Your description tag is a keyword-rich invitation.

The Description Meta Tag for this Page:

<meta name="description" content="Your description meta tag is perhaps second only to the title in importance for search engine optimization. You have but one chance in many cases to grab the searcher's interest. Make sure your description tag clearly outlines the purpose of the web page.">

This may seem completely logical, but you would be surprised how many people either leave this tag out completely, repeat the same description from page to page of their website, or simply do not take full advantage of a tag which clearly adds relevance and defines the purpose of the web page.

Think of your description meta tag as your site's "movie trailer"...a teaser of what's to come when the visitor clicks on your link. Be sure to include keywords and then repeat those keywords in the body of your page for search engine optimization.

Put the description meta tag to work for you and it will soon be one of your most valuable tools for search engine optimizing!

In case you did not notice, I have boldened and italicized the keyword phrases I repeated in both the decription meta tag and in the body of the page. This helps illustrate the goal of using keyword-rich copy in your meta description tag and page copy.