The meta description lives in the HTML <head> section as a meta tag: <meta name="description" content="Your description here">. If you're hand-coding HTML, paste it after the <title> tag and before </head>. For almost everyone else, your CMS handles the placement—you just fill in a field. WordPress users typically see a "Meta Description" or "SEO Description" box below the post editor if they've installed Yoast SEO, RankMath, or All in One SEO. Shopify stores have a dedicated "Search engine listing preview" section at the bottom of product and page editors where you paste your description. Wix, Squarespace, and Webflow all expose similar fields in their page settings or SEO panels. The platform injects the tag into the <head> automatically when the page renders. If you're working with a custom CMS or static site generator (Eleventy, Hugo, Next.js), you'll add the tag in your template's head partial or layout component. For client sites at Ottawa SEO, we typically standardize this in a reusable template so every page inherits the structure, then populate descriptions via front matter, a database field, or a CMS API. Length matters: aim for 140–160 characters. Google truncates around 155–160 on desktop, sometimes shorter on mobile. Write a clear, action-oriented summary that includes your primary keyword naturally. The meta description doesn't directly influence rankings, but a compelling one lifts click-through rate from search results, and CTR is a behavioral signal Google watches. Common mistake: duplicating the same meta description across dozens of pages. Every page that targets a different query should have a unique description. For large e-commerce catalogs or blog archives, templated descriptions (e.g., "Shop [Product Category] at [Brand] – Free shipping over $50") beat no description, but custom-written snippets win more clicks. If you leave the field blank, Google generates one by pulling sentences from the page content, which is rarely optimal.