Let us say, you are about to have your very first anniversary with the woman you have been dating for a year now (Who says men always forget anniversaries?) and you want to do something nice and special. You probably have thought of buying her a gift but then you don’t want something very usual like flowers or chocolates. Then you thought against buying because you want to give something very personal from you to her. So you’ve decided to make her a very romantic dinner at home. Problem is, the only thing you know how to cook is TV dinner. That and taking out a cold one from the fridge. So you boot up your computer and connect yourself to the World Wide Web to search for steps on how to make that romantic dinner.
You go to Google or Yahoo, then you type in “romantic dinner recipes” on the search bar and you get your self so many website listings that you are not sure which ones to pick. At first you just click on each link from top to bottom but when they didn’t give you the information you were looking for, or the information were very unhelpful, you stopped that way of checking and you decided that you will choose which one to use by reading the mini descriptions on each link, the sentence or two written below the clickable links.
But what are these mini descriptions? It depends on the search engine you are using but usually, these are the meta descriptions. These are a part of the HTML code that are seen within the head part or <Head></Head> of the website’s page. In terms of the correct syntax of the HTML tag for a meta description, it is as follows:
<META NAME=”Description” CONTENT=”Your chosen explanatory or illustrative sentence or two goes in this portion.”>
An average surfer though, will rarely use the meta description in deciding if he or she will click a site. What usually happens is that the surfer will click the first site on the list and will continually go down until he or she finally gets the information or site with most relevance. But still, some surfers do use meta descriptions in choosing sites. These are usually the ones that are not too satisfied with the first few links that the search engine offered and the surfer began to use another way of choosing which link to choose.
Search engines rarely use meta descriptions as a factor in their site ranking. So why bother even placing meta descriptions if the search engines do not use this in ranking and it will not help you get a better spot on the search engine results page?
If your site does or does not have a specific meta description, what the search engine will use in the search engine results page or SERP are basically parts of your site that contains the keywords keyed in by the searcher. These parts will differ depending on the search engine you use and also depending on the very words used by the searcher. Below are some concrete examples.
1) Search using your URL via Google and Yahoo
Type in your URL in Google first, www.MyNameIsJohnnyGroovyManMcPhee.com, a site about your idol, Johnny “Groovy Man” McPhee. Even if you have a spanking good meta description, the part you will see below the clickable link are the first words that are shows on your page. If you have an image that has an alt attribute tag making it the first few words on your page, that image will become part of the snippet seen below your clickable link. So if that is the case, make sure the first few words on your site is eye catching to relevant surfers and they should ideally contain appropriate information for potential visitors. Type in your URL in Yahoo. This search engine will promptly show your meta description.
Something to bear in mind here is that surfers rarely use your URL to search unless they already know your site, in which case they would probably use your site on their IE already and go to you directly. Mostly people who use URL’s are those that own the sites checking if their page is already indexed in that search engine.
So let us assume that a real person will be looking for your idol, Johnny “Groovy Man” McPhee.
2) Search using a specific related keyword via Google and Yahoo
Let us say a surfer wants to know about Johnny “Groovy Man” McPhee so he or she uses the words “Groovy McPhee” on Google.
If the words “Groovy McPhee” are not in your meta description and this phrase is not seen anywhere on your site in the way that the searcher has plugged in the search bar, Google will then just show a part of your site that uses the words “Groovy” and “McPhee” near each other. If my site has a rather boring portion where these words are near each other, then the surfer may not be too enticed to look at my site.
So if I do feel that people will usually use “Groovy McPhee” in searching for sites on Johnny “Groovy Man” McPhee, the I may want to add these words in my meta description or I make sure that their instances in my site would be shown in a very exciting and inviting manner so when Google shows it, the searcher will be inclined to click on my link.
Let us say the same surfer wants to know about Johnny “Groovy Man” McPhee so he or she uses the words “Groovy McPhee” on Yahoo this time.
If your meta description contains the words “Groovy” and “McPhee” even if they are not seen in the exact same way that the searcher looked for, then Yahoo will still use this meta description in the display portion on the search engine results page. The words below the clickable link will show a very enticing display so if you believe that your audience usually uses Yahoo, then make sure you have a nice and nifty meta description.
3) Search using an irrelevant keyword via Google and Yahoo
Just to further test meta description relevance on the site, we placed an irrelevant word on the Johnny McPhee site’s meta desciption – “pogo stick.”
Using Google, the results were that the site was not found at all. We got offered interesting sites about pogo sticks but no Johnny McPhee site. But when pogo stick was added on the body of the site itself, Google, found the Johnny McPhee site and the meta description was displayed.
Using Yahoo on the other hand, with pogo stick found only in the meta description, the Johnny McPhee site was located, but since it was placed on the latter part of the description, the display did not reach to that part of the description.
After these three tests and after using two of the top three search engines that we know (Live is the other top search engine), what have we found out about meta descriptions? For Google, they aren’t really very important as snippet displays below your link as shown in the SERP list but for Yahoo, they are better utilized.