Although many of the larger search engines
do not 'spider' the keyword Meta Tags on your
page, and in some cases ignore these
completely, the use of Meta Tags on your page
still serves an important purpose. There are
literally hundreds, even thousands of smaller
search engines scattered all across the
Internet. Whilst the bigger engines tend to
'spider' whole pages instead and obtain their
results from that, these smaller search engines
don't have as much physical space to work with
and must do things differently. It is in these
particular engines you will find that Meta Tags
are still very important.
Example:
<html>
<head>
<title>Put the title of your page
here</title>
<Meta name="keywords
"content="put,your,keywords,here">
<Meta name="description" content="put a
short description here">
</head>
<body bgcolor=#FFFFFF>
Put the page contents here ....
</body>
</html>
The above layout provides a basic template for
the creation of correctly formatted Meta Tags,
and can be used for all pages contained within
your website. If you are not showing up in a
lot of the smaller engines, lets say the first
200 or so entries under your chosen keywords,
then you may need to re-design your page and
Meta Tags. This will need to be done to ensure
that users have a better chance of finding you
under the keywords you wish to be found under.
It is not always a big change in your page that
results in your position moving up, it can be
subtle changes that have the greatest
effect.
What matters the most with any creation of Meta
Tags is to create a great Description Tag, one
that not only includes your keywords but one
that also includes well-written text that
sells. It is a well designed Description that
ultimately attracts the web surfer in the long
run.
It seems to be a popular trend for web surfers
and site-submitters these days to focus largely
on the larger traffic bringers (such as Google,
Yahoo, etc) at the expense of the more smaller,
less visited search engines. Of course, if that
traffic source is broken for any reason then so
is your business. If you concentrate on the
other sources, who may bring less traffic, then
you get a broader spectrum of referrals and can
easily weather any particular search engine
storm that comes up. It is for this reason that
we shouldn't forget the humble Meta Tag.
Meta Tag Optimization
You should make sure that all important
entry pages to your web site have at least the
KEYWORDS and a DESCRIPTION Meta Tags included
in the Header section of the HTML code. This
should be done BEFORE a submission. Without a
good set of Meta Tags, some search engines may
not index your web site correctly and may even
downgrade your ranking quite considerably.
Even though there are many methods you may use
in order to help you improve the effectiveness
of your Meta Tags, you should always pay
careful attention first to the most common
mistakes that people make, even after following
any sound advice on improving your web page.
You should check your pages for the
following:
· Always include the most relevant
keywords in the Meta Tags section first. The
relative position of your keywords can greatly
influence the ranking of your page on some
engines.
· Avoid repeating keywords in your Meta
Tags, eg:
genealogy,genealogy,genealogy,genealogy. This
type of practice is regarded as SPAMming by
most of the search engines and can result in
the eventual banning of your site
altogether.
· DO NOT try to include every possible
keyword in the dictionary. The more keywords
that you include, the more chance you have of
'diluting' the perceived relevancy of these
words. This kind of practice may result in a
downgrading of your web page ranking on some
important search engines.
· Aim to use more grammatically correct
sentences in your Meta Tags, ie: in your Page
Title and Description, rather than just a
simple list of keywords.
· Some search engines do not employ the
use of Meta Tags, so try and have the most
important keywords appear elsewhere in the
visible text portion of your page.
If you wish to include an additional list of
keywords in the visible text of your page, then
it would be a good idea to use them in
grammatically correct sentences.
Example:
"A broad range of computers and software for
sale. We stock monitors and games or printers.
Best place for hardware shopping on the
internet."
Simple MetaTag Rules
Some people spend the time turning MetaTag
optimization into an art. However, most of us
don't have the time for that. The countless
hours that can be spent on adjusting and
re-adjusting Meta Tags could be better spent
creating new content. After all, it is the
content that search engines are "really"
looking for. The Meta Tags just help the search
engines to find it.
So, the best thing that you can do is to create
a sensible set of Meta Tags which will be
friendly to most of the major search engines,
then MOVE ON. However, Meta Tags are quite
important, so you should go about making them
correctly the first time around. There is no
such thing as a "magical" set of Meta Tags that
will instantly explode your web site statistics
and search engine rankings.
Example:
You could go to a site that has a #1 ranking
for a great search term and cut and paste the
Meta Tags into your site, but you will not get
a #1 ranking out of it. There are many factors
that determine how search rankings turn out,
such as site popularity, page-loading speed and
content. What you need is a set of Meta Tags
that will match your site as best as possible.
And remember, it is far better to have too few
than too many.
· Rule 1: If a keyword is not on your page
then try to avoid putting it in the title,
description or keywords. Many unwitting people
seem to do this, and can be extremely damaging
to your promotional efforts. All it will do is
water the theme of your page down, and the
search engines will be wondering who and what
to show your page to.
Note: If you do know a word or phrase that is
very common, and you want to use it, then you
need to make sure that it is in your title,
description and keywords 'as well' as on your
page several times. Therefore you will most
likely need to re-edit your content as well,
(not just the MetaTags).
· Rule 2: Don't try to trick the search
engines. Search engines are getting smarter
every day, and if you think you know of a way
to deceive them then chances are... they
already know about it.
Example:
Avoid repeating text hundreds of times, and be
careful not to make it the same color as the
background. Search engines woke up to this a
long time ago. This is usually referred to as
'invisible text', and was originally invented
as a way to artificially 'boost' the ranking of
a website. Search engines know this trick
inside-out, and would simply place your page at
the bottom of their index. The time you waste
trying to be "tricky" would be better spent
working on your site, your site-content and
REAL promotional efforts.
· Rule 3: Keep your title, description,
keywords and content as specific as possible.
Many people try to add too many words and
phrases all over their webpage, thus making it
difficult for any search engine to categorize
and index your site...
Example:
Imagine for a moment that you are lost and you
need to ask for directions. If you were told to
"drive under the bridge, past the green house
on the left, over the little bump, past the red
mail box, you'll see a house with a white gate
and then you'll need to pass a school crossing
and then turn left"... you would most likely
stare blankly at the person in question.
However, if the person simply says: "Take your
next left" it would be much more helpful.
In summing up the above information, you must
make all attempts to keep as specific as you
possibly can. All you need to remember is to
use as many informative words as you can to
keep a "theme" on your page. By all means, use
as many keywords as is necessary, but avoid
going overboard with these at all costs.
(This information is part of the Trellian SEO
Toolkit Knowledge Base.)
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