That's an interesting question, marielune. I expect that if you are using "meow" as a noun, the register of the piece that you are writing is fairly low, and perhaps intended to be accessible to children. In that case, I know that some of the children's media I'm familiar with would be more likely to use "goes 'meow'" than "makes 'meow'"; in other kinds of writing, though, you might be more likely to say that the cat mewed (past) or mews (present). I had to think for a minute about this, as "mewing" and "purring" are different sounds, the former less often described than the latter with a single verb.