In this article, I will teach you the basics about Meta Tags and their functions. Learning how to create Meta Tags is essential for your companies web site ranking.
What Are Meta Tags?
Meta Tags are a series of sentences created by either you or your web designer in order to let the search engine know what each individual web page in your web site is about. These meta tags are NOT visible to your visitors but are within your code for search engines to read when they visit your site.
Your meta tags will help the search engine determine:
- What your page is about
- Whether your meta tags relate to your content within your page
- The relevance of your content
- Were to rank your site within the search engine.
VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT META TAGS!
The key to Meta Tags is to let search engines know what the content within your web page is supposed to be about! Creating meta tags that do not relate to your content will give very negative results and may get your web site banned from search engines.
Ex. Your content is about "Creating Meta Tags".
You'll want to include within your content specific information about
"Creating Meta Tags". Once your content is complete, select a few "Key Phrases" and include them within your meta tags. Make an attempt to keep each individual web page about 1 specific topic. This will help your page relavance within search engines.
What do Meta Tags look like and how do I view them?
To view meta tags it s actually quite simple if you know what to look for! There are 3 specific things to look for: 1) Title, 2) Description, 3) Keywords.
Here's what an example of what meta tags look like... Before you say "Huh?", I'll explain everything after the given example.
<head>
<title>Web Site Key Word Optimization & Meta Tags</title>
<META name="description" content="Search Engine Marketing Tips - Key Word Optimization - Top Rated Search Engines - SEO Search Engine Optimizing Services By Smartads">
<META name="keywords" content="Search Engine Optimization, key words, key word optimization, meta tags, title, description, optimizing meta tags">
</head>
Ok now... Here's what you're looking at...
<title>This is the title you will see at the top of your web browser!
The title may be the most important of all 3 meta tags. If you look at the top of your browser, our title meta tag will read "How To Create Meta Tags To Optimize Your Web Site".</title>
<META name="description" content="This is were you can describe what each individual page within your site is about. Not ALL Search Engines look at this meta tag but many still do. Keep your description to about 100-200 words. Try not to copy what your wrote within your title and make your description appealing to read.">
TIP: You must include the "code" indicated in bold in order for your
meta tags to work. So many web sites have meta tags that are never read by search engines because there is a flaw within the meta tags. Don't forget to include the "closing tags" ( "> ).
<META name="keywords" content="The key words meta tag gives the search engine the key words you want your site to be listed in when someone searches those key words. In other words, let's say you want to have your site listed when someone searches "Marketing". You would add "Marketing" within your keywords meta tags. Unfortunately due to over spamming by many web sites before you, search engines rarely pay attention to the "key word meta tags" but I feel it won't hurt to use all the tool available.">
Please Note: Each indivdual search engine looks at your key words
differently. No one knows what the search engines are looking for except for the people that program them. Any business claiming that they know what search engines are looking for are trying to sell you false hopes.
How to view a web page's meta tags!
Right click on your mouse and select the option "View Source". This will open another word document to show you the web site's "Code". Meta Tags are typically near the top of the document.
Try it out now and see if you can view this page's meta tags!!!