What’s in a Tag? Specifically – Description tags, are they important?
By: Rob Scutti - Posted July 20th, 2010
How much time and effort should one put into their description tag?
And, what is a description tag anyway?
In short, you shouldn’t have to put too much time into your description tag because if you are making a website for your business, you can probably sum up what you do rather quickly. The one thing you want to include in your tag are the keywords you’ve identified as your best or most often used words that people use to find your site.
What is it again?? A description tag is a ‘meta tag’ found in the head section of your web page’s code. It’s not visible on your web page, but it IS visible to search engines. So, do people ever see it or is it only there for search engines? Yes, people do see it! It becomes visible on the Search Engine Results Page. Ever wonder where that brief description of the page you’re thinking about clicking comes from? You guessed it, it’s the description tag if it was written correctly.
Although it shouldn’t take too much time to write your description, and it won’t help your ranking position, it IS still very important to the PEOPLE scanning through the Search Engine Results Page looking for the words they searched for.
What happens if you don’t use a description tag? Relax, nothing will happen to your rank position… However, let’s assume your website is ranking high in the Search Engine Results Pages, definitely on the first page and “above the fold” (an old newspaper term now referring to the page you see before you need to scroll down). Here’s where your description tag plays a big part in the overall success of your website. This is the place where you have the first chance to encourage, woo, entice, engage with your target audience. Fail here and your high rank could be meaningless. This is where “conversion optimization” starts. (Conversion meaning – converting a searcher into a person who clicks and engages with your site – but that’s a subject for another day…)
The bottom line? If you’re thinking that “this ‘ol description tag” isn’t very important anymore, think again. Just because it doesn’t affect your page rank, it certainly affects your target audience’s decision to CLICK!
