Meta Tag Optimization

Meta Tag Optimization Results In High Search Engine Ranking
by: James Day


I was compelled to publish this article after noticing several SEO specialists writing in reference to meta tags being dead or obsolite. Meta tags are not dead. I will be the first to say, meta tags are utilized by all major search engines and are very much in use and extremely important to search engine ranking. If you need proof of how important meta tags are, try removing your meta tags and watch what happens to your search engine positioning. Your site will plummet to the depths of the unvisited web. Meta tags are frequently an overlooked factor which can improve the ranking of most any website.

This is an example of how vital meta tags are to your webpage and to your search engine ranking. Our website ranks #6 and #7 consistantly on MSN for the keyword submit site. To test the dead meta tag theory, our source code editor changed one word in the meta description tag and we dropped to #15 in the search results. Our rankings on Google and several other search engines suffered even more so. Needless to say we made changes accordingly. All major search engines definitely utilize meta tags for a description of the webpage and for indexing within the search results.

The title tag is one of the most important on page factors to consider. This is because search engine spiders read this tag first and place a high level of importance on the keywords found there. The title tag is also used for the title of your listing in the search results. The contents of your title tag will also appear in the top left corner of the browser bar. Correct title tag optimization is essiential and will result in a dramatic increase in your search engine ranking. Title tag should contain at least one or more keywords to be of any relevance to the webpage.

Search engine spiders read the description meta tag next. This tag is often used as a website description in the search results. The description tag should also contain a few keywords. The keyword meta tag is also vital to search engine ranking giving search engine spiders a sample of relevant text and content within a webpage. Other meta tags include robots, resource, author, copyright etc. These tags are not as important as the title, description and keyword tag, however they should be included if possible. To acheive high search engine ranking optimize your meta data. Proper onpage optimization will greatly improve your search engine placement.

About The Author

James Day

Article written by the CEO of: http://www.submit-site.org/





Discover The Power of Meta Tags
by: Larry Lang



Meta tags are lines of code and are located in the “head” section of your web page. These lines of code, even though they are not displayed by your browser, are very useful when providing additional descriptive information about your web page. There are a number of different Meta tags used in your web pages, some more important than others.

Meta tags, or a element (both are the same), must contain what is called an attribute, and have some kind of value following it. A required attribute is content, and it defines the Meta information that goes with the attributes, http-equiv and name.

The http-equiv attribute has values like “content-type, expires, refresh, and set-cookie.” One example of an http-equiv attribute is if you have moved your web page to a new URL. You want to let your customers know the page has moved and, after a predetermined time, they will be automatically redirected to the new URL.

Example:

In the above example, your web page will refresh causing your user’s browser to refresh the current URL. Displayed is the short message you have placed on this page notifying your users the current page has moved and they will be redirected to the new page. In the above example, after 5 seconds the user will automatically be redirected to the new web page at http://www.yournewpage.com.

The name attribute has values such as, “author, description, keywords, generator, revised”, to name a few, and is the one most commonly used. For example, this attribute is the one you use when creating the description for your web page,

In the above example, we used the name attribute, and its value is description. We also used the required attribute, content. The content attribute defines what the Meta information is that goes with the value, description.

The description Meta tag, as it is more commonly referred to, is very important. This is what is displayed on the results page of search engines, and is located underneath your title tag. The title tag should contain as many of your keywords, or keyword phrases, as possible in a short, coherent sentence describing your web page.

The Meta tag that most people have heard of is keyword Meta tag. Although it is not as important as it once was, it is still a good idea to include it on your web pages. You should only put keywords in here that you are using on your web page, so they should be really focused. I suggest using between three to five keywords or keyword phrases, each being separated by a comma. Below is an example:

In all of the above examples, notice the Meta tag is, what they call, “properly closed”. It is considered “properly closed” when using a space after the last quote, followed by />. By closing all of your Meta tags this way, they will be W3C compliant. Also, when you check your code, you will not show any errors.

Creating the code for Meta tags is easy when you use our Meta Tag Generator, found at Elite Web Coaching. All you need to do to create your Meta tag code is fill in the form, press the submit button, then copy and paste your new code into your website. It is as simple as that!

About The Author
Copyright 2006 Larry Lang All Rights Reserved. Lang Enterprises Inc.



Using Meta Tags Wisely to Attract Search Engines and Visitors
by: Rajesh V. Tavakari


There are certain tricks and techniques in SEO industry, which can fetch you real quick and top ranking in short run and get banned for ever, which I am discussing in this article. Before optimizing any site, always follow code of ethics and never spam.

In this article, I will be discussing about meta tags. How to use the them effectively without spamming. Its not just another article about meta tags. Read on to find out more..

Meta Tags are very important for your website's visibility. Many search engines read them from your site when you submit it to them.

META tags were developed and made a HTML standard for the purpose of addressing specific information about your web page that does not affect the way your page actually looks.

1. Overstuffing Metatags : Believe me or not , there are still many people and web masters around who think that meta tags are magic bullet. Its not anymore.

Mistake No. 1: Stuffing keywords in Title
Mistake No. 2: Stuffing keywords in Description
Mistake No. 3: The keyword tag.

Mistake No. 1 : Stuffing keywords in Title

I agree that its very important to include your main keywords in title tag. But there are certain things, which you should remember, as title tag is the most important tag.

* Title tag length should be within 70 characters or 8 words
* Title tag should be meaning full and attract visitors
* Use one to two keywords in title tag
* Use plurals & concentrate on keyword phrases rather than just keyword.
* Make sure that title tag is grammatically correct

Syntax of Title Tag :

Your site title goes here

Now, lets me show you live demo on Title tag. Please search for "Office furniture uk" in Google, without double quotes. See the results. This is the first site listed under Google.

Office Furniture Home UK, Home Office Furniture London, Home ...
Office Furniture UK Online Home Office and Small Office Shopping England,

London, UK. Furniture, Office, Seat, Seating, Desk, Desks ...
Description: Uses full screen flash with exit button. Offering bespoke office furniture solutions for businesses....

Welcome to furniture123 - Bedroom furniture, Office furniture, ...
.. desk uk, child bed, home office furniture, child furniture, dining furniture, coffee table, office chair, furniture retailer, upholstery uk, bathroom furniture ...

Welcome to - Blueline Furniture - Ergonomic furniture, Custom ...
.. has pioneered the manufacture of office furniture using timber ... FIRA GOLD Quality Award as its furniture hire, minimum ... dealer network across the UK and Channel ...

MFI.co.uk
UK's leading furniture retailer offering an extensive range of quality furniture, including home office furniture, bedroom furniture, dining furniture, beds ...

These are the above first 4 results arrived for the term "Office furniture UK" in google. Now have a look over title and description. The first title does not make any sense and its stuffed with keywords, though its ranking no.1 it would have less click thorough as compared to no 2 and no 3.

A fair and attractive title would be something like :

Offers quality office furniture at discount price in UK ( Short title )

UK's leading furniture retailer offering office furniture at discount ( Perfect one )

Look at the above two titles. It conveys some message with a perfect sense. The best possible keywords have been used and its catchy too. Just by crafting a good title you can increase your click through, even though you are not listed in top 1 or 2 positions. I hope now you must have got some idea about crafting good title. Now lets jump to next step. Yeah. Description Tag.

Description Tag :

Description tag is still important as most of the search engines still give importance to it. Sometimes even google picks up description tag. An ideal description should be somewhere within 150 to 200 characters, which correctly describes the content of the page. Make sure to place 2 to 3 important keyword phrases within first 100 characters.

Tip 1 : Make sure that description tag comes immediately after title tag.

Tip 2. Make sure that the first paragraph or the heading of the page contains 2 to 3 important keyword phrase.

Tip 3. If possible you the targeted keyword phrase in text links to get boost.

Things to avoid :

1. Do not stuff the description tag with keywords.
2. Do not use generic keywords, use keyword phrases
3. Do not repeat the title in description

Keyword Tag :

The keyword tag is almost dead. Most of the web masters try to flood the key word tag with all sorts of keywords. Hardly couple of search engines gives a bit of importance to it.

Please note that, directories like Yahoo, Dmoz & About does not consider keyword tag or meta tags. I do not recommend using keyword tag. If you use the keyword tag, do not include more than 8 keyword phrases.

Do's

1. Include only important long keyword phrases.
2. Don't use generic / general terms. Be specific
3. Use Word tracker to find good keyword phrases

Don'ts

1. Do not spam by stuffing all the possible keywords.
2. Do not include the keywords, which are not related to your website
3. Do not repeat any tag ( title, description, keyword tag ) you might get boost by repeating, but never know when you will be banned.

Other important things to remember :

1. Meta tags ( Title & Description ) should reflect the content the page. Do not put your company name in title.
2. Do not try to target more than 2 to 3 keyword phrases per page
3. Try to include your important keyword phrases in h1 to h6 tag.
4. Include your important keyword phrases in tag, bold tag.
5. You will get boost if you include your important keyword phrases in anchor tag.
6. Do not forget to Include your important keyword phrases in first paragraph of your web page.
7. Try to put your important keyword phrases in alt text. ( for images )
8. Make sure that title and description is crafted neatly and attracts both visitors and search engines.

Robots (Recommended)

See the workshop report at W3 for the full text.

default = empty = "ALL"

"NONE" = "NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW"

The filler is a comma separated list of terms:

ALL, NONE, INDEX, NOINDEX, FOLLOW, NOFOLLOW.

Discussion: This tag is meant to provide users who cannot control the robots.txt file at their sites. It provides a last chance to keep their content out of search services. It was decided not to add syntax to allow robot specific permissions within the meta-tag.

INDEX means that robots are welcome to include this page in search services.

FOLLOW means that robots are welcome to follow links from this page to find other pages.

So a value of "NOINDEX" allows the subsidiary links to be explored, even though the page is not indexed. A value of "NOFOLLOW" allows the page to be indexed, but no links from the page are explored (this may be useful if the page is a free entry point into pay-per-view content, for example. A value of "NONE" tells the robot to ignore the page.

Conclusion

There are other meta tags like, Author, language, Copyright, Re-visit, classification etc. which are ignored by most of the search engines. Experience says, use the three tags wisely ( title, description & keywords ). You will be attracting both visitors and search engines. You can also use our free meta tag generator at http://www.website-promotion-ranking-services.com/meta_tag_generator.htm

For more information or any comments / suggestion on this article please EMail me . I will be glad to clarify the doubts / queries with live examples.




Importance of Meta Tags Optimization
by: Buniei Ahn


In this article, we simply talk about what Meta Tags are, their importance, the important Meta Tags and useful tips on how to optimize your Meta Tags for a better ranking with the search engines. "Meta Tag Optimization is an important aspect of your site optimization process. Careful handling can get you great Ranking Results " What are Meta Tags?

Meta Tags are the information inserted in the area of the HTML code of your web pages, where apart from the Title Tag, other information inserted is not visible to the person surfing your web page but is intended for the search engine crawlers. Meta Tags are included so that the search engines are able to list your site in their indexes more accurately.

Using Meta Tags in HTML is not necessary while making your web pages. There are many websites that don’t feel the requirement to use Meta Tags at all. In short Meta information is used to communicate information to the search engine crawlers that a human visitor may not be concerned with. Infoseek and AltaVista were the first major crawler based search engines to support Meta keywords Tag in 1996. Inktomi and Lycos too followed thereafter.

Why are Meta Tags used?

Meta Tags were originally designed to provide webmasters with a way to help search engines know what their site was about. This in turn helped the search engines decide how to rank the sites in their search results. Making Meta Tags is a simple process. As the competition increased, webmasters started manipulating this tool through spamming of keywords. In turn most search engines withdrew their support to Meta keywords Tag, which included Lycos and AltaVista. From being considered as one of the most reliable and important tool, Meta Tags are now often abused. In the present day scenario a vital feature that the Meta Tags provide to the websites is the ability to control, to a certain extent, how some search engines describe its web pages. Apart from this, Meta Tags also offer the ability to specify that a certain website page should not be indexed.

Using Meta Tags, however, provides no guarantee that your website page would rank highly in the search engine rankings. Due to the rampant abuse and manipulation of the Meta keywords Tag by webmasters, most search engines don't support it anymore.

Types of Meta Tags

The more important Meta Tags are discussed below in detail.

The Title Tag

The Title Tag is not a Meta Tag. However, since it’s a very important Tag, we thought it necessary to discuss it here. The Title Tag is an HTML code that shows the words that appear at the top title bar of your browser. The Title Tag is not displayed anywhere else on the page. It is these words or phrase that appear as the title of your page in the hyperlink listings on the search engine results.

The users in-turn click on this hyperlink to go to your website from Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Therefore, the significance of the Title Tag is evident as all search engines use the Title Tag to gather information about your site.

The Meta Description Tag

The Meta Description Tag is an HTML code that allows you to give a short and concise summary of your web page content. The words placed in this Meta Tag, are often used in the SERP, just below the Title Tag as a brief description of your page. In the Search Engine Results Pages, after reading the Title of the page, a user goes through the description of the page and decides whether she wants to go to your site or not. It is therefore important that your Meta Description Tag is nicely composed describing your page offering while enticing the user to click on your listing.

The Meta Keywords Tag

Most search engines do not read the Meta Keywords Tag anymore. It is okay to ignore the Meta Keywords Tags. However, if you feel more comfortable using it, you can have about 15 important non-repetitive keywords in this Tag, separated by commas.

Meta Robots Tag

The Meta Robots Tag gives you the ability to specify whether search engines should index that page or follow the links appearing on that page. However, there is no need for using Meta Robots tag if one is already using detailed robots.txt file to block any specific indexing.

The various commands used under Meta Robots Tag are:

Index: allows the spider to index that page.

Noindex: instructs the spider not to index the page.

Follow: instructs the spider to follow the links from that page and index them.

Nofollow: instructs the spider not to follow links from that page for indexing.

Note: Use only one of the above given commands.

If you have not specified any Meta Robots Tag on a page, by default, the spiders understand that the page and all the links appearing on that page are open for indexing. Therefore, it makes more sense to use this Meta Tag in case you don’t want certain parts of your web page indexed.

About The Author

Finding Your Home Business Niche
Copyright © Buniei Ahn, The Home Biz Guy
http://www.internetmarketpower.com
http://www.pluginprofit.com/main-3666
brubenahn@rogers.com