Meta descriptions matter because they're your sales pitch in search results. Google displays them under your title tag about 60-70% of the time, and users scan them to decide whether your page answers their query. A well-written meta description can boost CTR from 2% to 8-10% for the same ranking position, which compounds into significant traffic gains across hundreds of pages. They don't directly affect rankings. Google confirmed this in 2009 and has repeated it since. But CTR is a behavioral signal that correlates with rankings over time. If users consistently choose your result over competitors at position 4, Google notices. You won't jump to position 1 overnight, but sustained CTR advantages help maintain and gradually improve positions. The sweet spot is 140-155 characters. Google truncates around 155-160, but mobile cuts off earlier. Front-load your value proposition in the first 120 characters. Include your target keyword naturally because Google bolds matching terms, which draws the eye, but don't keyword-stuff. Write for humans first. Google rewrites meta descriptions 63% of the time according to recent studies. They pull from your page content when they think it better matches the specific query. This isn't a failure. Write your meta description for your primary keyword intent, and let Google handle long-tail variations. For commercial pages, we write meta descriptions that emphasize unique value, pricing transparency, or local relevance for Ottawa clients. Skipping meta descriptions is leaving traffic on the table. Google will auto-generate one from your content, usually grabbing the first text it finds, which is often navigation elements or generic intro paragraphs. We've seen pages gain 20-30 clicks per month just from replacing auto-generated descriptions with intentional ones. For a 300-page site, that's 6,000-9,000 incremental visits annually. On pages earning revenue, even a 5% CTR improvement pays for the effort within weeks.