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<meta name=”description” content=”The description of the web page.”>
Unlike the meta keywords tag, the meta description is used more by search engines. Google seems to use it as a quick check to determine duplicity of pages, which is something you want to prevent. If a search engine thinks a page is a duplicate of another page, you may lose positions as a result.
Here too, focus is the goal. Just like you have focused the title and the meta keywords tag on the same keywords, the meta description also has to focus on the same keywords. Here are some simple rules to follow:
Don’t use texts like: “This page is about …… “, but rather go for a (very) short version of the content of the page. The title will help you with that. A practical way of doing this is to grab some snippets from the content and combine those into a short version of the content of the page.
180 characters is just a guideline. There is no problem with a description of 220 characters if you can’t get it any shorter than that. At the same time, there are pages that just don’t have much to write about. A simple contact page for example does not require a long description.
Here too, spend time on the descriptions of each individual page. It’s important to focus all parts on the same subject. For many people this is the more boring work of SEO, but it’s very important to do it right. In the worse case I would suggest to have an employee do it for you.
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