Recently I decided to start compiling a series of search engine optimization tips. Each search engine optimization tip will be very specific, should not take a long time to fix (or to check to see if you are following the search engine optimization best practices), and will be rather “short and sweet” and directly to the point.

For this second search engine optimization tip, I thought I would talk about your web page’s meta description tag.

There are several reasons why you need to pay attention to your meta description tag. One of the most important reasons is that (based on the keyword used in a search query) the meta description can show up in the actual search result. In search engine optimization tip #1 we talked about the title tag showing up in the search results. The meta description tag can also show up in the search results, so writing a good meta description tag is not only good for search engine optimization-it is a way to convince searchers to visit your web site.

In this case, you can see that the meta description tag that was used on the web page shows up in the search results in Google because the keyword phrase I used to search is located in the meta description tag (I searched for “meta description tag”). If you include your keyword phrase then there’s a good chance that it will show up in the search results.

In the sample above, here is what the meta description tag:

Describes the meta description tag and provides tips for search engine optimization with meta description tags.

This meta description tag is well written because it’s fairly short, to-the-point, uniquely describes the content of the page where it’s found, and includes the keyword phrase “meta description tag” and “meta description tags”.

When you write your meta description tag, for search engine optimization purposes it’s good to make sure that you include the keywords that you are targeting on the page. It is important that the meta description be concise and to-the-point. You will want your meta description tag to accurately describe the content of the page where it appears. So, it also must be unique. Don’t use the same meta description tag on every page of your site. After all, each page on your web site is unique, right?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 10:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About the Author: Bill Hartzer manages the Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing team at Vizion Interactive, a leading search engine marketing, social media marketing, and web design firm based in the Dallas, Texas area. Hartzer recently joined Vizion Interactive, where his vast experience in the both search engine marketing and social media marketing bolster’s Vizion Interactive’s already robust search engine marketing and social media marketing offerings.