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Now that you have a better idea how to pick your keywords for your website/blog pages it’s time to take a look at Meta tags and how you can use them to achieve higher rankings in search engines.
Traditionally, Title and Meta HTML tags – parts of your websites’ underlying source code – have been centerpieces of any successful search engine optimization campaign. In the early days of the search engines, a top ranking often could be secured by simply building the right Title and Meta tags for your website or blog. Today, well-optimized Title tags remain among the most important search engine optimization factors, while the value of Description and, particularly, Keywords Meta tags has declined. Still, because most small and/or niche search engines and Web directories continue to incorporate all three elements into their indexation and ranking procedures, you should add carefully-optimized Title and Meta tags to your website.
Now while keyword meta tags and description are overlooked today, due to the Google SEO rage of the past few years, I’m going to explain why ideally, all of your site’s main pages should be equipped with individual Title and Meta tags that reflect the products and services offered on each of the pages, and why you want to put in the description and still use those keyword meta tags. You see, doing so allows you to aim for a top search engine ranking for each individual page, based on the keywords and phrases specific to each page.
Let me break it down for you.
The Title Tag – defines the text displayed in the web browser’s top bar on any given page. The Title tag should mirror its page’s contents, provide an appealing lead-in, and help boost the page’s search engine ranking — all in a few, easily-read words and phrases. A Title tag should be readable as a headline and include two or three carefully selected keywords. Descriptive, appealing and keyword-optimized Title tags will attract visitors, as well as search engines.
Point to remember: Title tags shouldn’t be more than 80 characters long, including spaces. They also should not repeat a word or phrase excessively as that might be construed as search engine spamming, which could cause your search engine rankings to plummet.
The Description Meta Tag – The only Meta tags that matter to the search engine optimization process are the Description and Keywords tags. Other Meta tags allow you to define your page’s language, author, refreshing intervals, etc. But they have no impact on your search engine indexation and ranking. This is why you must fill out this data!
The Description tag decides what some search engines will display for your site on their search results pages. (The top search engines, Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Ask.com usually will display a snippet of body text that includes the keyword(s), instead.)
Many search engines pay particular attention to keywords found inside the Description Meta tag. This means that a Description Meta tag should inspire the search engine user to click through the link and access your site. As well, the tag should include at least one occurrence of the applicable Web page’s top two or three keywords.
Point to remember: Description Meta tag content should not exceed 250 characters, including spaces.
The Keywords Meta Tag – In addition to listing keywords without having to worry about textual coherence, the Keywords Meta tag is the one website element that allows you to cover common misspelled and alternate spellings of your main keywords. If you are aware of any such alternatives, be sure to list them in the Keywords Meta tag. Generally, the Keywords Meta tag content should not exceed 1024 characters, including spaces.
I hope you this gives you a jump start on building your own Meta tags. For additional information please leave me a comment or visit my Website Review Service.
And, as always, I wish you success and sales!
Dr. Ande
Author of, 65 Tips for Affiliate Marketing Success
Host of, Dr. Ande’s Marketing Radio & Biz Talk with Dr. Ande
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