Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of every web designer's key steps in creating, maintaining, and promoting a valuable high-traffic website. Freeing you from the necessity of spending thousands of your dollars on promotion advertising, search engine optimization enables you to grow your traffic organically as your page rankings rise. What many web designers only learn after years of experience, however, is the powerful difference meta tags can make in how your pages rank.
No aspect of SEO is more frequently overlooked than making sure that meta tags are used on every page. Meta tags, which are invisible to visitors, give the search engines specific identifiers for the page. Many site owners never implement them to full effect.
There are two kinds meta tags that have an especially high impact on SEO and how your pages rank. The first is the META KEYWORDS tag. This meta tag lists keywords for spiders, telling them what your website is all about. For example, if you visit www.nytimes.com and right click on the page, and then click on "View Source," you will find a meta tag about half way down the first page reading META KEYWORDS. This meta tag will display a list of keywords starting with "New York Times, international news, daily newspaper, people, regional news, national news?" and so on. This list includes dozens of keywords that relate to the New York Times but also to newspapers in general.
Most search engines also detect these keywords in page content, but it is helpful to include in a tag keywords that are especially low-density in text, such as unusual spellings of names and places, related topics not specifically mentioned on the page, and any other keywords it is difficult to inject into the text in a user-friendly way.
The second important tag is the META DESCRIPTION tag. The search engines employ this tag to present information about your site when it appears in their search results. Most search engines allow 160 characters here. This is also a place you include keywords to boost your page rankings for targeted phrases.
There are also other meta tags, but these two are vital for SEO. It is important that you maximize your use of META KEYWORDS and META DESCRIPTION tags by making sure you do not cram them with words unrelated to your content or use the same keywords too many total times on the same page. Putting in too many keywords will cause the search engines to penalize your pages as spam. Not using enough keywords is almost as bad.
Finally, always different meta tags for every page. Changing the meta tags throughout your site makes it possible for the search engines to detect valuable differences in keywords on particular pages.
No aspect of SEO is more frequently overlooked than making sure that meta tags are used on every page. Meta tags, which are invisible to visitors, give the search engines specific identifiers for the page. Many site owners never implement them to full effect.
There are two kinds meta tags that have an especially high impact on SEO and how your pages rank. The first is the META KEYWORDS tag. This meta tag lists keywords for spiders, telling them what your website is all about. For example, if you visit www.nytimes.com and right click on the page, and then click on "View Source," you will find a meta tag about half way down the first page reading META KEYWORDS. This meta tag will display a list of keywords starting with "New York Times, international news, daily newspaper, people, regional news, national news?" and so on. This list includes dozens of keywords that relate to the New York Times but also to newspapers in general.
Most search engines also detect these keywords in page content, but it is helpful to include in a tag keywords that are especially low-density in text, such as unusual spellings of names and places, related topics not specifically mentioned on the page, and any other keywords it is difficult to inject into the text in a user-friendly way.
The second important tag is the META DESCRIPTION tag. The search engines employ this tag to present information about your site when it appears in their search results. Most search engines allow 160 characters here. This is also a place you include keywords to boost your page rankings for targeted phrases.
There are also other meta tags, but these two are vital for SEO. It is important that you maximize your use of META KEYWORDS and META DESCRIPTION tags by making sure you do not cram them with words unrelated to your content or use the same keywords too many total times on the same page. Putting in too many keywords will cause the search engines to penalize your pages as spam. Not using enough keywords is almost as bad.
Finally, always different meta tags for every page. Changing the meta tags throughout your site makes it possible for the search engines to detect valuable differences in keywords on particular pages.
About the Author:
Justin Harrison is a leading Internet Marketing consultant responsible for the Internet Marketing strategies behind some of the biggest online brands including Amazon, BBC, MasterCard and many others.
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