Meta Description Tag - Does it Matter

Search Engine Optimization comprises many aspects and one of these is the Meta Description Tag. Although this does not have an enormous effect on the overall ranking of the page in search engines, Meta Description Tag is still an important factor to be taken into consideration during the Search Engine Optimization process.

Meta Description Tag

It is better to define Meta Description Tag first before plunging into an in-depth explanation of it. Meta Description Tag refers to the HTML code found within the section of a particular web page. Usually, Meta description tags are positioned after the title tag and it precedes the Meta Keywords tag. This is the usual order; however the order is not very significant.

Syntax for the Meta Description Tag:

Importance of Meta Description Tag

Meta Description Tag does not have weight in some search engine’s algorithms; however some search engines give a little weight for it in the computation of ranks. It doesn’t have any huge value in the calculation of ranks – you can even opt to leave it out, but you should not do this. What is the importance of Meta Description Tags then?

Meta Description Tags help the snippets of texts that the search engines post from a page in a particular search. Bear in mind that the “Snippets” that these search engines use may vary depending on the keywords that searchers has entered into the search box.

If a particular searches keys in “SEO techniques” in the search box, search engines will look for these keywords on its index. Without a meta description tag that carries the keyword phrase “SEO techniques”, the search engine (Google for example) will look for instances where SEO and techniques are near each other and used all the other texts as snippets. This may not look good, however.

The keyword phrases that you think your searchers will use in their search must be included in the Meta description tag. This is not to add weight the page’s ranking but to receive more suitable description that is more relevant to what the searchers are looking for.

Meta Description tags are not something to worry about in Search Engine Optimization but it helps to understand them to be able to maximize their use. It is just easy to write a sentence or two that will carry your relevant keyword phrases, so why not make use of Meta Description Tags?

Meta Description Tag is one of the many factors that are useful in Search Engine Optimization. For more information about SEO, please see our SEO Resources or contact our SEO Specialists.