Many people ask about the description on searches, what they mean and what they’re good for. While many still put a lot of emphasis on the meta description tag on web pages, they really shouldn’t. It’s there and visible on searches which makes it important, but definitely not worthy of the time spent by many tweaking and perfecting.
People. Don’t. Read it.
On the website itself, it isn’t visible, which is why Google and the other search engines have abandoned it as a measure of ranking. From a strictly-SEO perspective, the meta description and meta keywords have zero influence. The only thing left, then, is how the page is displayed on search results. Meta descriptions do appear here, but they are the last thing that people see (and most don’t read them at all).
When people do a search, they first look at the links. Once they find a link that matches what they’re searching for, they’ll skip passed the description and look at the URL. If it’s a Places or Map listing, they’ll then look at the information placed there, whether it’s reviews, contact information, or a quote from a review.
Then, finally, maybe, they’ll look at the description.
Make sure that your descriptions are unique and compelling, but do not spend hours making them absolutely perfect. There are better uses of your time than focusing on something that very, very few people will actually read.