Is the description still useful for Google rankings?

[member22]

Hello,

Is the description of site still usefullfor google rankings or is the title the only one necessary ?

The most requested keywords for my site are in the title ( there are plural ) and the less requested keywords for the same expression are singular and I am thinking about having them in my description. Is it usefull or should I just write a description without thinking about keywords ?

Thank you,

[incrediblehelp]

Well I feel it is. Maybe not so much in ranking a page, but helping describe the page properly in the SERP to help with CTR.

Also Google uses it as indicator for duplicate content. So a site that uses the same description on all pages could give themselves some problems.

[MadeWillis]

I think it is useful for CTR as well. The query words appear in bold if they appear in the title or description.

[Robert Charlton]

Is it useful or should I just write a description without thinking about keywords ?

The most useful descriptions are those which anticipate the queries for which the page is likely to rank.

In choosing a snippet that satisfies a query, Google looks for the query terms first in the description, then in onpage text. So, if you want your description to be returned, you do need to think about keywords.

That said, those keywords won't directly help you rank. They do help you with click-throughs.

[bwnbwn]

Google thinks there useful as well. If Google took the time to program in webmaster accounts a link to see repeated descriptions and titles then yes they are important. Besides that do you want the bot to pick and chose your description.

Case point looked at a site last week no descriptions so on one of the internal pages the bot picked the website design companys name and phone number for the description. The said how did this get here I pointed out you didn't descripe the pages so the bot did it for you, they are now in the process of adding good titles and descriptions to all their pages.

[aristotle]

Try to write a description that contains your best keyword and also will catch the interest of searchers.