What Are Meta Tags?
Meta tags on each page of your web site are small pieces of HTML markup that tell search engines what you think your web page is about. They should play a diminishing but still important role in your best-practice SEO strategy.
Whereas years ago the meta keywords tag was very important, many “fast buck” webmasters slammed their keywords tag with repetitive keywords (think “Britney Spears, Brittany Spears, MP3s etc etc,) so nowadays there is only one meta tag which is vitally important to your online lead generation…
The meta description tag is a short precis that tells Google, Yahoo!, Bing and the other search engines how you would describe your web page.
<meta http-equiv="Description" content="Zenith Staybrite Windows, the largest supplier of conservatories, double glazing, replacement doors, fascias and replacement windows, along with many other home improvement features" />If Google trusts your Meta Description, (please read that again – this is a subtle but powerful way to tell whether your content is generally trusted by Google, which is obviously important,) then it will use your meta description as the text snippet in its Search Results pages (SERPs)
Your Meta Description should be around 150 characters or around 27 words. It should not be repetitive or “robotic” and, whilst it should contain your keywords, it should be written primarily to attract humans to click on your website. Its a classic call to action which, if well crafted, will increase the number of visitors to your site everything else being equal.
In conclusion: make sure your meta description tags are indeed descriptive, different on different pages, not overly search-engine focused, whilst still containing your page’s primary keywords, and finally written to encourage humans to click!
