How to Use Meta-Tags to Improve Search Engine Rankings
Meta-tags are probably the most over hyped and misunderstood item when it comes
to search engine optimization. There is nothing “secret” or mysterious about meta-tags.
So lets look at what they are and how they can help you improve your search engine
ranking if used properly or hinder your efforts if used improperly. Meta-Tags
are special HTML tags that appear in the head portion of a web page. The head
portion of the web page is not displayed in your browser. The head portion contains
information that is read by the search engines such as the title of the page,
the description of the page, and what keywords are contained in the page. Here
is an example of the a very simple HTML page that displays the following text:
Sample Web Page Showing the Use of Meta-Tags
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Here is what the HTML looks like that would have generated that web page.
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<html>
<head>
<title> This is my sample web page </title>
<meta name=”description” content=”This is a simple example of how to build
a web page that uses meta-tags” >
<meta name=”keywords” content=”web page,meta-tags”>
</head>
<body>
<H1> Sample Web Page Showing the Use of Meta-Tags</H1>
</body>
</html>
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Notice that nothing in the head section is displayed in the page, only the
phrase “Sample Web Page Showing the Use of Meta-Tags” is shown. Lets look at each
element in the head area one by one.
Title: The title is the most important element of the head section.
Most search engines give very high weight to the title of the page. So the title
of your page is very important in your search engine optimization effort. This
is the title that the search engines will use when they list your web site. Try
to keep your title to under 6 words or less than 100 characters.
Description: The description is also important. Most search engines
will use this as the description in their search engine results for your web site.
Make sure to include your targeted keywords within the text of your description.
Do not make your description a list of keywords. It should consist of complete
sentences. Keep the description to fewer than 150 words.
Keywords: This is where you tell the search engines what keywords to
look for in the page. DO NOT use keywords that are not contained in the page’s
text content. Do not repeat words. For example: cat, cats, large hairy red cats.
Notice how the keywords in the example are separated by commas but without any
spaces.
Important Note: It is extremely important that the title and description
reflect the content of the page. It is also essential that the keywords are actually
contained within the page. If not, the search engine may consider that you are
trying create false content in order to manipulate them into giving you higher
search engine ranking and will ignore your keywords or in the worst case, not
list your site.
Also note that not all search engines consider meta-tag keywords and descriptions
when they index a site. Google and Excite do not consider meta-tag keywords in
their search engine rankings. Google also does not index meta-tag descriptions.
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