What exactly are Meta Tags?
If you examine the HTML coding of a web page, the Meta tags are HTML codes which have been inserted in the header of a web page, between the “opening” and “closing” HEAD tags. Meta tags provide data about your Web page to search engine robots so that the search engine can better understand what your web page is about.
Are Meta Tags still important to SEO?
Meta tags were the classic way to tell search engines what your web page was about. Meta tags list details about the web page, like the author, keywords and phrases, description, type of document, copyright, and other key information. However, because of spamming of keywords and massive abuse of Meta tags by adult-oriented sites, their significance has greatly diminished in the search engine algorithms.
That’s not to say that meta tags are entirely pointless. Yahoo! And Bing still make use of Meta Tags in their search engine algorithms when it comes to ranking websites, Google places importance mostly on the Title Meta tag and the amount of backlinks to a webpage.
Meta tags, for example, can tell a browser what “character set” to use or whether a web page has self-rated itself in terms of adult content. Meta Tags aren’t always required, but as a rationale, it makes a lot more sense to take advantage of them than to leave them out. If the Meta Tags are not in place, the search engines will generate their own description of the site based on the content observed from the first 200 words of your web page. This may not always be optimized for keyword density, therefore affecting your page’s ranking in the search engines. By correctly optimizing Meta Tags with your targeted keywords, you have much more control over what is displayed in the search engines for your web page.
SEO tips for optimizing your Meta Tags
Meta tags are certainly not magic bullets for search engine ranking, but they are far from being dead. Meta tags with informative, well-written descriptions and targeted keywords and phrases should be an integral part of one’s promotional strategy.
Title tag: This will be the most significant meta tag since Google pays special attention to the keywords and phrases used inside the Title tag. Ensure it’s no longer than 70 characters long and insert your main keyword at the beginning of the Title tag for maximum effect.
Description tag: This is the second most important meta tag because it is displayed in the Search engines, and should contain keywords reflected in the Title tag, and an accurate summary of what the page topic is about. Do not use more than 155 characters in the Meta description tag.
Keywords tag: This is the least important Meta tag as Google doesn’t pay much attention to it due to the prevalence of keyword spam. A general rule is to contain keywords that are present in the page content, with no more than 10 keywords recommended.
Understand how Meta Tags affect your site’s performance in the search engines. Visit Advantage SEO. Information covering search engine optimization, PPC advertising, web design, usability issues and social media marketing.
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