DOES THE META DESCRIPTION TAG REALLY MATTER ANYMORE?

Searchers, overall, are still a hurried bunch. We want to find the information we're looking for in a relatively short amount of time and the quicker the better. This includes scanning the short text description -or snippet- that Google displays under the link title on their search engine result pages and undoubtedly influences our click-through decision. That short snippet could be from the meta description tag and that's certainly reason enough to play close attention to it.

5 Tips to writing better Meta Description Tags

1. Create quality tags that are unique for each page that are easy-to-read and accurately represent the content of your web page. Searchers don't hesitate to hit the back button if they get to a page that's off topic.

2. Try to keep your tag under 200 words.

3. Integrate keyword phrases in various forms or tenses that apply to your page within the description. If they truly relate, this integration should flow freely in the description copy and not appear forced.

4. If your site was written by an experienced search engine copywriter, you should be able to take a good descriptive sentence right off your web page to use as the basis of your Meta Description tag. If you wrote your own copy, look at your first opening sentence. Chances are, with a bit of tweaking that sentence could be used for the meta tag.

5 . Swap places and read your tag like a crawler. Does it relate to potential user queries?

What influences Google's decision to show Meta Description tags?

It appears that Google algorithmically decides whether to display the meta description tag or not, depending on how well the user query relates to the tag. Web pages lacking meta description tags have snippets comprised of other text found on the page and may not be in a meaningful format.

While quality meta descriptions can improve click-through, they don't affect ranking within the search engine results. Nevertheless, while many have downplayed the role of this tag, the day has not arrived when the meta description tag can be eliminated from a web page.