Best Practices for writing effective Description Meta tags

The Description or the Description meta tag is a summary of the page.It should summarize the contents of the page in 2-3 descriptive lines (160-200 characters). There should be enough excitement created for the searcher to want to search your page for more.

The title and to some extent the description, is the initial preview of your page that a potential visitor comes across while searching the internet, for your products and services.Each of your web site pages can be optimized with the most powerful and effective titles and descriptions. A potential customer can enter your website from any page. Every page of your website has the potential to drive a lot of relevant traffic. This is where the title tags and the description tags play a vital role. Guiding  the visitors so that they are compelled to click on your link is their key function.

Some examples of attractive usage of the description meta tags –

1. Title :Breaking News | Latest News | Current News – FOXNews.com
Description: Breaking News, Latest News and Current News from FOXNews.com. Breaking news and video. Latest Current News: US, World, Entertainment, Health, Business, …
www.foxnews.com/ – Cached – Similar

2. Title: Breaking News (BreakingNews) on Twitter
Description: The latest breaking news alerts around the world from hundreds of sources. Also follow us at facebook.com/breakingnews and @BreakingNewsEds.
twitter.com/breakingnews – Cached

It might be a good idea to make a few drafts of the titles and descriptions and run it through people. Ask them which of those appeals to them the most.It would be advisable to test it on people who are not involved in your business directly, there will be less bias that way.