What is Title & Meta tags and why it is important

A page's description Meta tag gives Google and other search engines summary of what the page is about. Whereas a page's title may be a few words or a phrase, a page's description Meta tag might be a sentence or two or a short paragraph.

What is Title tag?

"According to About.com;
The title tag is what the user will see at the top of the browser window, as well as in the search results as the linked title to your Web page. Title tags help search engines determine your web page's relevancy for certain keyword phrases."

Title Tag defines in Head section of web page.

HTML syntax to write Title Tag:

<title>informative title here</title>

It can be placed keywords, products or services name, news headlines etc in Title Tag.

What is Meta description tag?

Meta description is a tag of web page where you can describe the content in few words. Users can not see the Meta description tag in web page but search engines can see and displays in search results pages.

According to Google Webmaster Guidelines;
"the short text preview we display for each web result – can have a direct impact on the chances of your site being clicked (i.e. the amount of traffic Google sends your way). We use a number of strategies for selecting snippets, and you can control one of them by writing an informative meta description for each URL."

Meta Description defines in Head section of web page.

HTML syntax to write Meta Description Tag:

<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="informative description here">

It can place keywords, effective message and call to action so users can see in search engine results pages and persuade click on link.

Why Title & Meta tag is important?

When user searches a query in search engines, displaying results in search engine results pages are Title & Meta for web pages. You can notice that bolded words are search keywords so it can draw an attention of users and persuade to visit a page.

Effective Title & Meta helps to rank high in search engines and drive qualified visits to your website.

Accordingly to Google Webmaster Guidelines;

"Why does Google care about meta descriptions?
We want snippets to accurately represent the web result. We frequently prefer to display meta descriptions of pages (when available) because it gives users a clear idea of the URL's content. This directs them to good results faster and reduces the click-and-backtrack behavior that frustrates visitors and inflates web traffic metrics."

Reference:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/09/improve-snippets-with-meta-description.html

Related SEO Question:

Does it require page specific and unique Title & Meta for each page?
Each page of my website has Title & Meta, however my website is not ranking in top 10 positions.