Achieving prominent listings in the search engines often
depends upon just a few simple lines of HTML text that go
into the header of your site. These are called meta-tags.
Regardless of what some people will tell you these days
Meta-Tags are more important then you might think.
Here's why - search engines rely on your site to tell them
what your site is about. Meta tags help to do this quickly.
While not every search engine uses them to determine ranking,
you should still have them for the ones that do.
If your site uses frames, lots of JavaScript, then you
really need meta tags more than ever because the search
engine spider typically is only going to read the first
few hundred characters on your web site.
If that precious virtual real estate is taken up by nonsense
characters like Java mouse rollover code, graphics or CGI,
than the spiders might not make it all the way down to the
content on your page thereby making it very difficult for
them to know exactly what your site is about.
Remember if you don't use meta tags on your web site, Google
is very likely to grab the first couple of sentences off
your page. This could be the first couple of sentences for
your first paragraph, your navigation bar, or page headings,
depending on how you got your web site built.
We've all seen this before you do a search on Google or
any other search engine and typically there's always at
least one or two results pages that contain links to web
sites that clearly are telling the search engines what they're
about.
Instead of a description you'll see the Java code or navigation
links etc.
The other thing to keep in mind is the proper format of
your Meta tags. I know it seems like everyone has their
own idea how they work best, but there is a specific order
that works best for Google, and since there the big dog
on the block you should aim to please them first.
Your Meta tags look like this:
<html>
<head>
<title> your web page title goes here </title>
<meta name="description" content="your
web site description goes here goes here ">
<meta name="keywords" content= your web site
keyword to go here ">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
(if you use cascading style sheets)
<meta name="revisit-after" content="31">
(optional)
<meta name="robots" content="FOLLOW">
(optional)
</head>
There are no other meta tags that are necessary. Leave
out the author & copyright meta tags. They take up space
and are only good for your Webmasters ego.
-
Here are some general guidelines for you follow when
creating your meta tags.
-
The title meta tag should be no more than 65 characters
including spaces.
-
Your description meta tag should be no more then 180
characters including spaces.
-
Your keywords meta tag should not exceed 128 characters
including spaces or, no more than 10 individual keywords.
Now the next question should be how do I know what to say
in my title, description, and keywords meta tags.
Actually the answer is pretty simple -- you want to use
the keywords that people on the Web are currently using
to find sites like yours.
There are a number of online tools that I recommend that
will help generate keywords for you based on such things
as how popular they are, how often their search to, and
how many other web sites are also competing for those keywords.
Try the sites first:
http://www.thieptraitim.com
You'll use the information that you gain from these tools
to build not only your meta tags but also to work keywords
into the body of your web page as well. Remember, Google
uses meta tags as well as reading the content on your pages.
Making sure that you have richly developed content full
of descriptive and theme based related keywords will help
ensure you get the best ranking possible for your web site.
Best of luck, and see you at the top!
Don Schnure
thieptraitim.com
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