Intro to Meta Tag Optimization

An HTML document contains three sections. The first is a Document Declaration Statement which tells the requesting agent what version of HTML the web page is using. The second is the HEAD element which contains the TITLE and META Tags. The HEAD section is meant to give requesting agents general information about the web page. The third section is the body, which is what is translated by your browser into a viewable web page.

Today, there are only a few META tags that are worth your optimizing. Luckily, the list is short:

• Title
• Description
• Keywords
• Robots

The Title Tag

A Title should be informative about the web page content. It should be understandable outside of context. For example, "Introduction" is not a good page Title, but "Introduction to Search Engines" is a good Title. Important: The Title of a page appears as the link to your site in search engine results. Make it something your customers will be likely to click on!

The Description Tag

The description is the second most important element of the HEAD section. Although it is most often not used to determine search engine rankings, the Meta description is sometimes used as the description under your link in search engine results. A good web page description can mean the difference between someone clicking on your link or skimming down to your next competitor.

The Keyword Tag

Keywords have been so badly abused, that many search engine optimizers have declared them dead. Still, even if only a few search engines still use the keyword META tag, every lit bit helps. Keep them short and sweet. Don't repeat a keyword more than twice (some say don't ever repeat a keyword), and don't overstuff your keyword META tags. A good keyword tag has 5-20 well-chosen, succinct phrases that may or may not be separated by commas.

The Robots Tag

A robots Meta tag is meant to instruct search engine spiders or 'bots' in how to index--or not to index--your web site. The default is "index, follow", which means that without a robots META tag, the search engine spiders should assume you want them to index your site and follow its links.