Meta Description Tag

The Meta Description tag is arguably the second most important HTML tag on your web page. Most of the time, the content of this tag will appear below the title on search results. I say most of the time because sometimes the search engines will mix in other bits of text in the location below the title on the results page. It is actually a bit more complicated, but we’ll leave that for another post. Nonetheless, it is important to take some time to craft a nice meta description for each of your website pages and posts.

Meta Description Length

Most of the descriptions are two lines with around 70 characters per line. That means you have about 140 characters (oddly the same as the Twitter limit) to describe and promote your page or post.

Meta Description Considerations

With more character some more options than you have with the Meta Title tag, but the same general principles apply. You want to make sure that you have you primary keywords in the text. But, since this is a description, you do want to use prose with a clear description of  the content of the page. This looks more professional and less spammy that one packed with a bunch of keywords. Remember that you are trying to entice the searcher to click. A bunch of all capital keywords will probably not do the trick.

Add A Call To Action

Finally, since you have a little extra room, you can trow in a call to action. “Read more…” seems to me to be simple and to the point. Use that at the end of the 140 characters as a call to action.

That is how I think you should approach the Meta Description tag. However you do it, you should take time to think about what you are going to say. This little tag is your free ad copy on the search engines. If you do it right you can win those all important clicks in a crowded market.