The description meta tag is probably as equally important as your page title. This holds true for both spiders and users. Since it is the description which is shown under the search results, this along with the title is your initial point of contact between you and a potential visitor or customer.

How much of your descriptions search engines read varies depending on the engine. But it is fairly safe to say that most engines will display 170 characters as your description in the results. Having said this, you can now understand why it is important to describe your site in as little words as possible. But within this small description, for the spiders sake, its important to ensure some keywords are present.

Aside from the Keyword and Description Meta tags, there are a bunch of others which should at least be discussed.

Lets take a look at these other, lesser known tags and if they have a real purpose in Search Engine Optimization. Next Page >