SEO and Meta Tags
01/05/2009
What are 'Meta Tags' ?
Meta Tags are part of the website code, located within the header section. They define various aspects about the document. There are a large number of META tags, but just a few that are important for search engine optimisation.
The title tag and SEO
The title tag is the most important tag that is used in the search engine optimisation process.
Firstly the search engine robots place great importance on the text within this tag. Secondly, the content of this tag is often used to describe your webpage, and so it should make sense and not just be a list of keywords. A very high number of websites have a title of either 'homepage' or 'index' - neither of which gives any information to potential website visitors.
Once your website is on the first page of the search engine, you need it to look relevant, and a title that is simply a list of keywords will not encourage clicks onto your site. The aim of search engine optimisation is to attract visitors, not to achieve no 1 position.
It is interesting how few SEO companies or website designers plan for the website reaching the coveted 1-3 positions in the search engines. This is when the meta tags become important in attracting the real visitors.
The description tag and SEO
The description tag is the second most important tag that is used in the search engine optimisation process. The text within the tag does appear to be indexed by the search engines. But also, the first few lines, or parts of the description tag are often returned with the search results. It is therefore important that these make sense and encourage potential visitors to view your website.
The Keywords tag and SEO
In the early days of search engines, this was a very important tag. But it was then abused and now most search engines ignore this tag. It is still worth using for the few search engines that do make use of it. It is best to place the most important keywords at the start of the list. But it is not worth spending much effort on. Google appears to ignore this tag in terms of giving positive benefit; it may look within this tag for possible keyword spamming and give a penalty to the page concerned.
Contact Cornish WebServices for a realistic quotation to help naturally optimise your website for increased visibility in the search engines, and not just improve a few meta tags!
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Services
Cornish WebServices have been successfully marketing websites on the Internet since 2002 (before search engine optimisation became popular). Contact us for a realistic quotation to naturally optimise your website for increased visibility in the search engines.
