Meta Tags. Once a huge factor in the SEO and search ranking game, they’re now the subject of nostalgia for Pros who’ve been around a while. You can hear them in Starbucks talking about ‘Remember when stuffing the Meta Keywords tag got you to the top of Google?’ over coffee.

Still, there are those who insist they’re still key to beating Google’s ranking formula. If you meet one of those SEO ‘experts’, run the other way.

What IS still important in the world of Meta tags is the Meta Description. Unfortunately, while the now irrelevant Meta Keywords tag somehow retains a small, but rabid fan base, the Meta Description tag is given little attention.

It’s even completely ignored on some sites. The reason for this is because it’s not, and never was, a ranking factor. Despite that it plays a critical role in getting the searcher to your website, the 1st step in sales. Here’s how.

Why Giving Google Control of Your Search Engine Marketing Is A Bad Idea

Your Google listing has 3 elements to it:

• The Title, taken from the page’s Title tag

• The URL of the page

• And a brief piece of copy that is your only chance to sell the searcher on visiting your page

Where is the copy taken from? If you’re using the right tags, it will be from, you guessed it, the Meta Description Tag. But what if you haven’t used it? What happens then to your search engine listing?

What happens is that Google just grabs a random piece of text from the page and shoves it in there. No context. No weighing of whether that text best serves your purposes. No evaluation of whether it actually sells your site or your business. It doesn’t even necessarily start with the beginning of a sentence or end at the end of one. In other words, it could make absolutely no sense to the reader.

What's happening here? This: You're handing your search engine marketing over to Google and they're basically doing it blindfolded.

Do you truly believe that letting Google randomly pull words off your page is going to do anything to help you or your business? Please.

The only way to control your message to a prospective customer is to control the avenue to them. That avenue, within Google, is the Meta Description tag. Sit down, write a clear, appealing pitch to a prospect for each and every page.

That way, and only that way, can you be confident about what you’re saying to your audience in those initial moments when you MUST convince them to choose you over the other 9 listings on that page.