Is this ok for a META tag description?

[budbiss]

Say my company sells new and used toy building blocks of various shapes and colors. Lets also say that some people call them 'blocks', some call them 'buildingblocks' some 'building blocks', and some 'playblocks'. And lets say there are 3 major companies who manufacture these blocks: blockmanu1 blockmanu2, and blockmanu3. And also, lets say we sell grey blocks and assume that some people might spell 'gray' like this: 'grey'. Would this be ok for the description:

"We sell new and used toy buildingblocks building blocks playblocks from blockmanu1, blockmanu2, blockmanu3 in grey, gray, blue, and red colors."

[tedster]

Because the description meta can show up in search results, I think it is very important to consider how it will read to the potential visitor -- if it is awkward, then you've probably just scared away a click.

It's the keywords in the OFF page spots (inbound link text and other text on that linking page) that means the most these days. If you can, that's where I would focus on getting all the variations.

Then on each page of your site, you have a new opportunity to use the meta tag to create a new variant of your description -- one that interests the targeted visitor in clicking through.

It's a question of balance. If you try to do everything at once, than you actually end up weakening your over-all position.

[globalseo]

My answer would be "not exactly".

As Tedster indicates, this is what is seen by searchers so it should be crafted with them in mind.

Currently, the relative importance of the meta description tag is so low that it is truly best used to present a compelling and action oriented description.

Also, in the case of Google, which actually compiles the description for its SERPS by taking the sentence that encapsulates the search word from within the body of the page you can use the meta tag to generate clicks.

Also, to rank well for the specific manufacturers, you should have a page specific to each of the manufacturers. I would focus on making the description for those pages as precise to that page as possible - for example:

"Offering a large selection of <most popular keyword variation of their type of blocks> from blockmanu2 in all shapes and colors"

This way when you actually rank well, it will capture their attention and prompt the click.

[budbiss]

Thanks guys, I didn't realize that the description would actually be seen by a surfer so I agree it wouldn't be too wise to write it in a way where it appears as broken english.

BTW, any idea on a limit of how many characters I should not excede in the description?

[Marcia]

About 25-30 words isn't a "maximum" but it generally serves the purpose with enough for a click. If more is picked up to show in the description they'll go on and pick up a bit from the page text itself.

>>"We sell new and used toy buildingblocks building blocks playblocks from blockmanu1, blockmanu2, blockmanu3 in grey, gray, blue, and red colors."

"Building blocks both new and used from blockmanu1, blockmanu2 and blockmanu3. Blockstore, your premier online source for play blocks, carries buildingblocks in your choice of gray, blue and red."

That way you're grabbing in an occurence of the "you" word and also inserting a little branding for the site.