Search Engine Optimization Meta Tags
Written by G&M
February 18th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Meta tags are (mostly) invisible bits of code that are embedded in your web site pages. While there are a lot of possible meta tags we are really only interested in a very few: the Title, Description, and Keyword tags. These are what you can call the search engine optimization meta tags. It’s an awkward phrase, but it does say what they’re for and why we’re interested in them.
If you’re really interested in looking at the raw code, then you will find all of the meta tags embedded in between the <head></head> tags at the start of your pages.
One thing to keep in mind is that the most meta tags are only of small importance in the SEO game. Quality links are much more important, as is your page content, but the meta tags can help.
The Title tag isn’t really a meta tag, in that it doesn’t have the word “meta” anywhere, but it’s generally considered to be one. It’s also, by far, the most important of all the “meta tags.” If you look at the very top of your browser window, way up at the border, on the left, you will see the title tag in action. For this page, it should say, “Search Engine Optimization Meta Tags – GrowthandMarketing.com.” Note that that’s not the title that appears at the top of the main displayed page or post, it’s only for the browser title. This same title will also be what appears in your browser’s bookmarks as well as those of anyone else who bookmarks your page.
If you were to look at the raw HTML code of this page you would see, near the top,
<title>Search Engine Optimization Meta Tags - Growth and Marketing</title>
In your browser it will look like this:
The title tag is the most important of any meta tag on your page. It’s the first descriptive thing that a search engine spider will see and it gives it some idea of what your page is about. If that title matches up with the rest of your page then you get a boost in the search engine rankings for your page. Any program that creates web pages will have an option for creating that title tag. For blogs, such as WordPress, you can get a plugin, like the SEO pack, which will let you set the title tag and a few other things. It’s pretty much an essential plugin.
Your link in the search engines will be the contents of that title tag. If the title tag on your fishing page says “untitled document” then you’re shooting yourself in the foot as far as the search engines are concerned.
While you do want want to have your keywords in the title you also want to try making that title a little catchier. If your site sells fishing gear you could just put fishing gear in the title tag of a page. Something like fishing gear for all freshwater fish would be better and be more likely to get clicks. Every page on you site should have a different title tag that describes that page. Your catalog page on Trout lures could just say lures, but something like Trout Spoons, would be better and Using Spoons to Catch Bigger Trout or Trout Spoons Come in All Sizes would be a good title tag for your “how to” page.
The Description meta tag is probably used for SEO purposes by some search engines, but it’s not really important for that reason. You do want to have one though, because it allows you to set the description of your page. This way, when someone looks in the search engine listings at your link, she will see a good description of your page rather than the random stuff the search engine ‘bots pull up. Look at any search engine listing, trout spoons for example, and you will see both the clickable title links and the page descriptions.
Notice how some of the descriptions are pretty catchy, some are pretty generic, and some are just fragments. The catchy ones will give you a good idea whether that page matches what you’re looking for. Try to do the same for your own description tags.
Write up a catchy 10- to 15 word blurb on what your page is about. While it probably won’t help you to get listed higher on the page it will helps you get more clicks by giving you a more attractive link on that page.
One thing to keep in mind is the the search engines are not obligated to use the description that you provide, but most will use at least part of it. Google included, though it might also toss in some other its from the page, such as dates.
The Keyword meta tag was, once upon a time, a very important tag. It gave the search engines an additional idea of what your page was about. Unfortunately, people abused it by placing way too many keywords in that tag, some of which had little to do with the page content. These days all the big search engines pretty much ignore the keyword tag and you should also do so. It isn’t worth an effort.
As far as the general SEO meta tags go that’s all of them, though the other tags have definite uses. for example:
- <meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8″ /> Gives your browser certain information about the page.
- <meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”0;URL=http://www.google.com”> this one will “refresh” your page and switch to google.com. This is a good one to use on old pages. Just put a refresh meta tag on the page and it will redirect to wherever you want it to go.
- Other meta tags might link to style sheets, provide more page information, and so on. Sometimes they are even used to hide additional keywords, in the hopes of gaining better SEA benefit. My opinion is the the search engines are on to that one.
One other tag that might be of interest in some cases is the “Robots” tag, which looks like this:
What this does is keep the search engines from indexing that page. Ideally it would work for all search engines, all the time, and it probably works reliably for all the big ones. This is a good tag to use on a page which has your downloads.
For SEO purposes the title tag, to repeat, is the only one that’s important. The description tag is good since it enhances usability in that it helps to give you a better listing, if not better ranking. Everything else is pretty much useless as an SEO meta tag, though it might have a perfectly valid use for your browser or an internal search engine or page redirection and so on.
Resources:
- Meta tag builder – you won’t need this if you’re using a blog, but if you’re coding pages by hand then it might be a time saver. You plug in the info and it will generate correct tags for you. You then copy and paste them into your HTML code.
- Wealthy Affiliate’s article marketing course is just a small part of the SEO training you can get from their site. They have tutorials, forums with responsive people, tools, and all kinds of stuff to get you higher search engine rankings. highly recommended.