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If you’ve searched Google recently, then you may have notice something different. In the past, searches for products pulled up two or three paid ads in the search results, and then along the right side of the screen, more paid ads were displayed. Those right-side ads? They’re gone now. In their place is an opportunity for ecommerce companies.

Hello Product Placement

The words “product placement” bring to mind characters drinking from a can of Coca-Cola during the most exciting scene in the movie. Well, okay, we can run with that. Only, instead of characters, it’s Google search results. And instead of Coca-Cola, it could be your product. 

The paid ads in the results list haven’t changed, but there on the right side, we now see a grid with products that are relevant to the search. Anyone planning to do a bit of shopping just passed a window with everything they ever wanted on display, right?

Proper Placement Protocol

If you look closely at the screenshot above, you’ll see that one of these things is not like the others. This is an issue that ecommerce companies will have to address if they hope to make the most of this new product placement. To understand what went wrong, you have to understand how these products appear in the first place. 

We’ve covered the best practices for product ads before, but some things bear repeating. The keywords you bid on for your paid product ads are important. They tell Google what you’re actually selling. If you use the keyword “navy cardigan” when, in fact, you are selling a red one, then you’ll waste money on every click you receive. How many people will buy a red one when navy is what they’re searching for?

How You Can Benefit

You can take advantage of this change by double checking your current ad practices. Strategy for these ads is imperative if you want your products to appear during searches. The example above is just one way you could fail at promoting your products. Consider the many ways your users might search for the items you’re selling. What words might they use to find those products? 

Let’s say you have a pair of shoes you want to sell. What color are they? If they’re red, make sure that’s one of the search terms you use. A quick search of red shoes provides the following:

This is a good start, right? But if you’re actually selling a pair of red heels, there’s a good chance your product ad won’t appear. There are too many other types of red shoes competing for space. So, we need to specify red heels, right?

This is a little closer. At least images of red high heels are showing up in this search. The styles are still vastly different, so unless you’ve bid quite a bit on your keywords, you might still be fighting for some real estate in the product ad grid. You could make things easier on yourself by adding more keywords to further narrow the search.

This final search for red patent heels drills right down to the very type of shoe a buyer may be seeking. Sure, if they just need red heels, they won’t bother adding the material. Those who do want a particular shoe, however, are much more likely to find yours. 

The ad space is growing ever smaller, which means companies need to pay more to secure their spot. Whether you’re trying to find space in the new product display grid or with text ads in search results, don’t be surprised if ad prices blow sky high. For paid ads, your only defense (outside of reaching deep into your pockets) is a strong strategy that weeds out the competition. You need to be thinking smarter about PPC and more about diversifying your acquisition strategy. 

“Choose co-founders the way you would choose a spouse,” advises entrepreneur and author Danielle Newnham. “The reality is that you will, at least in the early days, spend far more time with your co-founders than your partner.”

The co-founder relationship is perhaps the most personal of all business relationships. Co-founders are like the parents of a newborn business, and as such, they spend countless hours working (and arguing) together in order to see that business become successful.

Some of the world’s most successful co-founders have had drastically different outlooks and skill sets, but it was often those differences that made the relationships work. Combine a sales-minded dreamer with a genius engineer, or combine a punk rocker with a hip-hop pioneer, and — as you’re about to discover — the sum can often be greater than its parts.

The Inspiring Stories of 10 Famous Co-Founders

1) William Procter & James Gamble (P&G)

Source: P&G

Talk about a co-founder relationship being personal: William Procter and James Gamble, co-founders of what would become one of the world’s largest companies, were brothers-in-law.

Procter, a candle maker, was married to Olivia Norris, while Gamble, a soap maker, was married to Olivia’s sister Elizabeth. It was Olivia and Elizabeth’s father who convinced Procter and Gamble (his sons-in-law) to merge their candle and soap-making operations, citing that they were competing for the same raw materials (namely, animal fat and oil). So in 1837, they took their father-in-law’s advice and Procter & Gamble was born.

Today, P&G is a multinational consumer goods company that employs more than 100 thousand people and has a market cap north of $200 billion. Some of its most successful brands include Crest, Charmin, Gillette, and Head & Shoulders.

And to think it all started with a father-in-law’s simple suggestion. The moral of the story here: Always listen to your in-laws. (Or at least try to tolerate them the best you can.)

2) Bill Hewlett & Dave Packard | HP

Source: HP Memory Project

It’s unclear how Procter and Gamble decided on the order in which their names would appear, but for Bill Hewlett and David Packard, we know how they figured it out: They flipped a coin.

The original garage entrepreneurs (garagepreneurs?), Hewlett and Packard became friends in 1934 after they had both graduated from Stanford University with degrees in electrical engineering. In 1938, they rented a garage in Palo Alto and started working on their first product: an audio oscillator for testing sound equipment. In 1939, they formalized their partnership and held their infamous coin flip to determine whose name got top billing.

Hewlett and Packard both took an employee-centric view of management. And as a result, HP became one of the first U.S. companies to offer flexible work hours, profit-sharing, and several other employee benefits. As Bill Hewlett once noted, “What I’m most proud of is the fact that we really create a way to work with employees, let them share in the profits, and still keep control of it.”

As partners, Hewlett and Packard always had each other’s back. When Hewlett went to serve in the Army during WWII, Packard ran the company on his own until Hewlett’s return. And similarly, when Packard stepped down as HP’s CEO to serve as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, Hewlett stepped up to take his place. Together, the two entrepreneur/patriots developed a company culture at HP that has persisted for decades.

Today, the Palo Alto garage that Hewlett and Packard started out in is a California State Historical Landmark. It bears a plaque that reads “The Birthplace of the Silicon Valley.”

3) Danielle Weisberg & Carly Zakin | theSkimm

Source: Forbes

Boasting 1.5 million+ subscribers, theSkimm is an email newsletter phenomenon that’s changing the way people consume the news.

TheSkimm co-founders Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin met while studying abroad in Rome, where — according to their About Us page — they bonded over “a mutual love of fried artichokes.” Both ended up as producers at NBC News in New York, and after listening to their friends constantly ask them for the latest headlines, they realized that the news media landscape was shifting.

To capitalize on this shift, Weisberg and Zakin quit their jobs, moved in together, and launched theSkimm from their couch. “For two girls who grew up more ‘Morning Glory’ than ‘The Social Network,’ it took a lot of guts, and white wine, for us to make theSkimm a reality,” they wrote on their About Us page.

Note: For a more in-depth look at how Weisberg and Zakin launched (and grew) theSkimm, check out our interview with them on The Growth Show.

4) Bill Gates & Paul Allen | Microsoft

Source: Forbes

Not all co-founder stories have fairy tale endings. And while Microsoft’s founding duo Bill Gates and Paul Allen both ended up multi-billionaires, their relationship didn’t exactly go up and to the right.

Gates and Allen started out as childhood friends. Both attended the private Lakeside School in Seattle, where they bonded over a mutual passion for computers and BASIC programming. By the 1970s, both had moved to the Boston area — Gates to attend Harvard, and Allen (three years Gates’ senior) to work at Honeywell. It was there that Gates and Allen first learned about the Altair 8800, one of the world’s first personal computers. 

With the arrival of the Altair, Gates and Allen began to sense that writing (and selling) software for personal computers could be a big business. (Spoiler alert: They were right.) In 1975, the two formalized their partnership under the name “Micro-soft” and created their first product: a BASIC programming language for the Altair.

Even in the early days, however, there was some strain on the co-founder relationship. Gates was adamant that they split ownership of the business 60/40 (in Gates’ favor), citing that he was still a student while Allen was able to earn a salary. A few years later, Gates fought to tip the ownership scales even more (to 64/36). And perhaps most egregiously of all, Allen once overheard Gates complaining about how unproductive he (Allen) had become, and how he wanted to dilute Allen’s ownership in Microsoft even more. Allen was battling cancer at the time.

Allen resigned from Microsoft in 1983, but would remain on its board of directors until the year 2000.

5) Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak | Apple

Source: The Next Web

The story of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak co-founding Apple in the Jobs’ family garage is perhaps one of the best-known co-founding stories ever. So for the sake of saving paper — errr, pixels — here’s the tl;dr version: Jobs and Wozniak met through a mutual friend. They were exposed to the latest personal computing technologies by way of the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley. The first product they collaborated on was a “blue box” for making free long-distance phone calls. Then, in 1976, they launched their first computer: The (retroactively named) Apple I.

Unlike the Gates/Allen partnership where both founders were technologically savvy, with the Jobs/Wozniak partnership, the former was more of a sales-minded, “big picture” guy, while the latter was an electronics guru. Needless to say, that combination of skill sets worked out rather well for Apple’s co-founders.

And while Hollywood might portray Jobs and Wozniak as constantly butting heads, that’s not how Wozniak remembers their co-founder relationship. “We never had a fight or an argument,” he told the Milwaukee Business Journal back in 2014. “We were always friends.”

6) Rick Rubin & Russell Simmons | Def Jam

Source: NPR

It’s one of the more unlikely partnerships on this list: A 21-year-old NYU student who plays in punk rock bands (Rick Rubin) joins forces with the 27-year-old manager of the hip-hop group Run-D.M.C. (Russell Simmons). The result? One of the world’s most successful record labels, Def Jam.

The year was 1984, and Rubin had just started dipping his toes into the world of hip-hop. He had produced the track “It’s Yours,” by T La Rock and Jazzy Jay, which got the attention of Simmons. After meeting at a party, the two instantly hit it off and start running a record label together out of Rubin’s dorm room. A year later, they released the first album under the Def Jam banner: LL Cool J’s “Radio.”

By the end of 1986, “Radio” had gone platinum, Def Jam had released the Beastie Boys’ debut album, “Licensed to Ill” (which would go on to become the top-selling hip-hop album of the decade), and they had signed Chuck D.’s new group, Public Enemy.

It was a good year. And it was a year that marked Def Jam’s transformation from a startup to a major music industry player. While Rubin would end up leaving Def Jam in 1988 to launch a new label, the original Rubin/Simmons partnership will always be remembered as a pioneering force in the music world. Perhaps their most notable contribution was folding the intensity of rock music into hip-hop music … something that had never really been done before.

As Rubin once explained, “So up until the time of Def Jam, pretty much most of the rap records at the time were R&B records with people rapping on them. And then I think one of the things that separated our records from the ones that came prior was that they had more to do with what the actual hip hop culture was … the goal was to capture the energy that you felt at a hip hop club.”

7) Linda Avey & Anne Wojcicki | 23andMe

Source: Bloomberg

In some cases, the social impact a business could potentially have is more important to a founder than the business itself. That was the case with Linda Avey when she set out to found the genetic testing company 23andMe.

As the story goes, Avey’s original business partner was on board for selling 23andMe’s testing kits, but was against Avey’s bigger plan: to build a massive genetics database for researchers, which could help lead to medical breakthroughs.

As Avey was pursuing funding for the project, she learned about Anne Wojcicki, a biotech analyst at a hedge fund. Avey invited her to dinner. “She showed up in jeans with a backpack slung over her shoulder (loved that!),” Avey wrote about Wojcicki on Quora.

After meeting with Avey several more times and learning more about the project, Wojcicki came to a decision: She wanted in. Avey was happy to have her, and the two worked together in a shared office to get 23andMe off the ground.

8) Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield | Ben & Jerry’s

Source: One Life Success

Remember: Building a successful company is a marathon, not a sprint. And this saying is especially relevant in the case of Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, considering how they met. As Cohen explained back in 1995, “I met Jerry running around the track in seventh grade gym class. We were the two slowest, fattest kids in the class. I liked him because he was funny and smart, and you could count on him.”

While Cohen and Greenfield remained friends through high school and college, their business partnership almost never came to be. Cohen had his heart set on becoming a potter, while Greenfield was planning on becoming a doctor. Fortunately for ice cream fans everywhere, no one would buy Cohen’s pottery, and no medical school would accept Greenfield. So after debating between starting a bagel business or starting an ice cream business, they chose the latter based on the lower start-up costs.

Having grown up together in New York, Cohen and Greenfield eventually made their way to Vermont in search of a suitable location for their first homemade ice cream parlor. In 1978, they landed on a dilapidated gas station, which they fixed up themselves. By 1983, they were franchising Ben & Jerry’s stores and selling their signature ice creams (like Chunky Monkey) via independent distributors. By 1984, they had already topped $4 million in annual sales, and by 1985, they were donating 7.5% of their annual pre-tax profits to charity via the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation.

“When we first started, it was just a lark. We never expected to have anything more than that one homemade ice cream shop, but now Jerry and I are millionaires,” Cohen once said. “Our relationship hasn’t changed at all … Food has always been our binding tie – food and our girth.”

9) Larry Page & Sergey Brin | Google

Source: The Guardian

In 1995, a 22-year-old Larry Page visited Stanford as a prospective computer science doctorate student. His tour guide? A 21-year-old Sergey Brin, who was already working on his computer science doctorate at the school.

The two didn’t become friends right away, as both were very opinionated and considered each other “obnoxious,” according to a Wired interview. But as Page began researching how websites link between one another, and started building out technology that could identify all of those millions of connections, Brin became fascinated.

By 1998, Page and Brin had joined forces, dropped out of Stanford, and — like Jobs & Wozniak and Hewlett & Packard before them — set up shop in a garage. In the early days, their Google search engine pulled in 10 thousand queries a day. Today, it’s estimated that Google receives 3.5 billion searches per day.

10) Julia Hartz & Kevin Hartz | Eventbrite

Source: Vator.tv

Julia had a great job working at FX Networks. Her Hollywood office even came with a view. But then she met her future husband, Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur Kevin Hartz. First he asked her to marry him (she said yes), and then he asked her to co-found a company with him (to which she also said yes).

Evenbrite, a self-service ticketing platform, was born in a wiring closet in 2006. Julia was in charge of customer experience and business operations, while Kevin — with the help of a third partner, Renaud Visage — worked on the product. Today, Eventbrite has a valuation north of $1 billion.

As a husband and wife co-founding team, the dynamics of the relationship were obviously a bit different compared to the entrepreneurial norm. However, as Kevin said in an interview back in 2013, “When you’re working with founders, your fellow founders, that relationship is fundamental whether it’s romantic or not.”

In that same interview, Julia commented on how the two were able to preserve their relationship as the business grew: “We had this law that we would divide and conquer, and wouldn’t work on the same thing at the same time. It just so happened we had complimentary skills so that was an easy thing to do.”

Any other great co-founding duos out there that we missed? Tell us about them in the comments section below!

As the deluge of online content continues, getting your content to stand out from the crowd has become increasingly difficult.

For many of us, accepting the reality that our content needs to be better and actually doing something about it are two very different things. A common issue is that we simply don’t know where to start — we don’t know which optimization techniques will help give us a leg up on our competitors.

Fortunately, the folks at Siege Media created a content optimization “cheat sheet” for us in the form of the infographic below. Take a look and learn about all the little tweaks you can make to your content to give it that extra edge.

Know any other tips for creating better content? Share them in the comments section below!

Each of us spends a significant portion of our days at work, and consequently, around our coworkers. And because team members spend so much time together, they’ve often privy to relatively small details and actions — both positive and negative — that others more removed from the environment might miss. 

If you are fortunate enough to be a part of an efficient, effective, and genial team, odds are you’ll regularly have cause and the desire to thank your colleagues for actions both big and small. The usual suspects for showing gratitude — cards, cakes, and “thank you” notes — are all solid options. But in case you want your acknowledgement to stand out, consider using one of the following ideas.

(Does your coworker like pranks more than thanks? In that case, check out this post on the 31 best office pranks, and start strategizing.)

9 Unique Ways to Thank Your Coworkers

1) Do their dirty work.

Everyone has at least one task at work that they simply can’t stand. Maybe it’s data entry. It might be conducting a training or some other type of public speaking activity. Perhaps analytics make your colleague’s skin crawl.

Whatever your coworker’s least favorite duty may be, offer to relieve them of it for a day or two as a way of showing your appreciation. Not only will this simple gesture improve their mood, it’ll also free up some of their time to do even more awesome stuff. Win for them, and win for the team as a whole. 

2) Thank their manager.

Managers are busy people, and depending on how many people they have reporting to them, they might not see everything each direct report does in a given day or week. 

With this in mind, one of the best ways to thank a remarkable coworker is to pass the thanks directly to their manager. Write an email calling out their remarkable deed, and make it known that this person’s impact is felt across the team. Then simply let your colleague know that you’ve tooted their horn for them, so they don’t have to. 

3) Save them time.

New time-saving apps for virtually every type of task or profession seem to pop up every day. The only problem: because there are so many, it can take a considerable amount of time to vet them and identify the best. Oh, the irony.

If you know that your coworker struggles with a particularly time-consuming task, do the research on their behalf and find them an app, hack, or helpful tip that can shave hours off their day. Enabling your colleague to become more efficient in their day-to-day truly is a gift that keeps on giving. Don’t be surprised if there are tears of joy.

4) Broaden their horizons.

One of the best ways for professionals to progress in their careers is to learn and apply new skills. So if your coworker has been kicking serious ass at their job, thank them by gifting a subscription to a learning platform, such as Lynda.com (a database chock-full of expert-led video tutorials on subjects like design, business basics, web development) or SkillShare (virtual classes on marketing, technology, writing, and more facilitated by everyday folk).

Besides helping them to broaden their horizons, this acknowledgment gift also carries a meaningful message: I believe in you, and want to see you go far. 

5) Back them up.

We’ve all been there — that awkward moment when you throw an idea out in a meeting, and no one says anything. Eyes are diverted. Throats are cleared. Clocks are glanced at. RIP: your idea.

If this happens to a coworker who has had your back time and again, thank them by returning the favor and taking their side when the chips are down. Now, this is not to say that you should agree with them — especially if you truly don’t think their idea or argument is correct. But a simple validation, such as “interesting perspective,” or “thanks for sharing that” will make it clear you support them — even when no one else does. 

6) Help them meet their goals.

Regardless of what specific work you do, each of us is responsible for some type of deliverable that we must source, create, or otherwise fulfill upon. For example, a salesperson must find and sign new customers for their company. Recruiters are tasked with identifying high-potential job candidates. Marketers have to craft compelling copy for blog posts, websites, and landing pages.

Want to thank your coworker? Help them meet their goal. If you know they’re having a tough time finding prospects or job candidates, provide a referral. If they’re in the midst of writer’s block, send some stellar writing along for inspiration. Ask them how you can help, and do it.

7) Make an introduction.

Your coworker is awesome, and you know it. So shouldn’t others know it as well?

If you’re connected to influential people either internal or external to your company that it would benefit your colleague to know, make an introduction. Nothing says “thank you” quite like a new mentor or an opened door.

To write a killer email introduction, keep the following tips in mind as your craft your message:

• Consider doing a double opt-in introduction (check out this post to learn how).
• Provide context around why you’re making the introduction now. For example, “Mary — Joe just completed an interesting project on X. Since we were recently chatting about ways to improve X, I thought you two should talk.”
• Clearly explain why each person would benefit from knowing the other. For example, “Mary, Joe brings a fresh perspective on X that you might find valuable. Joe, Mary has a lot of experience with X, and she can give you insight into how your ideas fit into the broader strategy.”
• Include any personal commonalities as fodder for starting a conversation.
• Add links to both parties’ LinkedIn profiles.

Would a LinkedIn introduction be more appropriate? No problem. To make an introduction on LinkedIn, simply click the “send message” button on your coworker’s profile, click “add others to this message,” and pop in the second party’s name. Voilà!

8) Provide a shoulder. 

No matter how much you love your job, everyone has frustrating days. Let’s say your coworker has been heading up a project that’s more involved than most — and doing a superb job. But then something goes awry, and it’s all hands on deck for a number of days. Is your coworker stressed? Undoubtedly. 

Instead of forcing them to grin and bear the situation all on their own, approach your colleague and offer your ear for a judgment-free vent session. Your coworker will feel much better for getting the chance to unload some frustrations, and the empathetic gesture will strengthen the bond between you.  

9) Write a LinkedIn recommendation.

LinkedIn is lousy with recruiters, and with this in mind, writing a recommendation for an exemplary colleague can go a long way to helping them achieve their ultimate career aspirations. Your words will provide proof of their awesomeness for all 400 million LinkedIn members to see. I think it’s safe to say that after writing a beautifully worded and overwhelmingly positive recommendation, you can consider them thanked. 

Not sure where to start? Use this post on writing the perfect LinkedIn recommendation as a guide.

A heartfelt “thank you” is nice, but its effects last for a few hours at most. The best forms of acknowledgment better a person’s life in a significant and long-lasting way. Thank your coworker in one of these nine ways, and watch their performance soar.

How do you thank your coworkers? Share your ideas and tips below.

Meta descriptions. Blegh; sounds complicated, right? Two years ago if someone would have asked me about a meta description I would have assumed they were trying to talk nerdy to me. It sounds like code, and something that is way over my head.

Wrong.

Meta descriptions, despite their stereotype, can be broken down in a fairly simple way. The more content I create and the further I dig into inbound marketing methodologies, the more I realize how important meta descriptions are, and how a powerful meta description can make or break. I’ve turned to the experts many times when it comes to understanding meta descriptions, and I’m here to share what I’ve learned. Check it: 

First Things First: What is a Meta Description?

Experts at MOZ explain meta descriptions as “HTML attributes that provide concise explanations of the contents of web pages.” What? Let me break it down … You know when you Google something, and a list of results come up? A meta description is those couple sentences under the title that describe the search result. My friends at HubSpot describe a meta description as “the snippet of information below the link of a search result.”

Stay with me – here’s a screen shot:

Basically a meta description is what is ready to help the searcher decide whether or not to click the link to an article or web page. A meta description helps convince or persuade readers to choose your site. Oh, and the bolded words within a meta description help note which words (keywords, in fact) match those in the search query. Nothing too complicated, right?

Do I Really Need a Meta Description?

So now that we’re on the same page and you’re fully equipped with the knowledge of what a meta description is, let’s talk about whether or not you really need one. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel here – I turned to trusted experts and dug up some meta description gold.

The short answer to “Do I need a Meta Description?” is yes. The long answer? Yes, and here’s why…

1) Increase Click Through Rates & Improve Visits from Organic Search

The percentage of clicks consistently drops off as you go further down the page, because a more relevant result is, logically, usually at the top of search engine results. So, if your result is far down at the bottom (or not even on the first page of results), you’re already working shorthanded. This makes having a detailed, relevant, and eye-catching meta description that much more important. In short, the better your meta description, the more likely it is you’ll have good click through rates from organic search. – via HubSpot

2) Give the Right People the Right Information at the Right Time

Google uses meta descriptions to return results when searchers use advanced search operators to match meta tag content, as well as to pull preview snippets on search result pages, but it’s important to note that meta descriptions do not to influence Google’s ranking algorithms for normal web search. – via MOZ

3) Increase Visits from Social

Social sharing sites like Facebook commonly use a page’s description tag when the page is shared on their sites. Without the meta description tag, social sharing sites may just use the first text they can find. Depending on the first text on your page, this might not create a good user experience for users encountering your content via social sharing. – via MOZ

4) Use it to “Sell” Your Content

Although the Meta description itself doesn’t affect the ranking of a given web page, the side effects of a well crafted one can – well written meta description have been proven to increase click through rate, and in some instances time spent on the web page, and these metric DO play a part in the algorithmic rankings. – via Hallam

What Makes a Meta Description “Powerful”?

For every blog, web page, and piece of copy we write, we follow the best practice of creating a corresponding meta description. Now that you know why (see above) – here’s the how:

1) Write Compelling Content

Write a short sentence previewing the content or telling the searcher why they should read your post. Give them a clear benefit of clicking through and reading your post, if necessary. This is your chance to sell them on what you have to offer — informative, valuable content. – via HubSpot

2) Use 1-2 Keywords

The title tag and the meta description tags should include keywords relevant to the content of the web page they describe. This helps Search Engines understand what the page is about and index your web pages accordingly for relevant keywords or keyword phrases … The meta description tag should ideally target a unique keyword for each web page. Avoid keyword spamming and have each keyword only appear once. – via seoWorks

3) Aim for 155 Characters

Google actually doesn’t measure by characters – it measures by pixels. That is, it’ll cut off a meta description after a certain width. The reason we say 155 characters is to give marketers a benchmark to abide by. – via HubSpot 

4) Avoid Keyword Duplication

It’s sometimes helpful to have a few descriptive terms in the title, but there’s no reason to have the same words or phrases appear multiple times. A meta description like “Foobar, foo bar, foobars, foo bars” doesn’t help the user, and this kind of keyword stuffing can make your results look spammy to Google and to users. – via Google Support

5) Eliminate Non-Alphanumeric Characters

Search engines identify alphanumeric characters, like hyphens, plus signs and quotation marks as HTML code and as such may not use the description as you intend it to be used. It is best to stick to plain text when it comes to meta description tags … Any time quotes are used in a meta description, Google cuts off the description. To prevent meta descriptions from being cut off, it’s best to remove all non-alphanumeric characters from meta descriptions. – via MOZ

To sum up the makings of a truly powerful meta descriptions, I’ll leave the final words to Google:

“Use quality descriptions. Finally, make sure your descriptions are truly descriptive. Because the meta descriptions aren’t displayed in the pages the user sees, it’s easy to let this content slide. But high-quality descriptions can be displayed in Google’s search results, and can go a long way to improving the quality and quantity of your search traffic.”

The Exception

As I get older – and wiser, of course – I find there is an exception to every rule. Meta descriptions are no different. There are instances where a meta description isn’t necessarily crucial. However, as I’ve noted above, conventional logic agrees that it use generally wiser to write a good meta description for any given page. Here’s the “but”, via MOZ …

If the page is targeting long-tail traffic (three or more keywords) it can sometimes be wiser to let the engines extract the relevant text, themselves. The reason is simple: when engines pull, they always display the keywords and surrounding phrases that the user has searched for. If a webmaster forces a meta description, they can detract from the relevance the engines make naturally.

It sounds tricky, but it’s pretty simple. If you have a page that lists several articles (think a blog or newsletter archive, or something like “your cart” if you’re ecommerce), it might be OK to forego the meta description. When in doubt, spend time writing an engaging sentence or two, and feel confident the right people will find the right information from you, at the right time.