Using Meta Tags wisely to attract search engines & visitors. by
Rajesh V. Tavakari
http://www.website-promotion-ranking-services.com There are
certain tricks and techniques in SEO industry, which can fetch
you real quick and top ranking in short run and get banned for
ever, which I am discussing in this article. Before optimizing
any site, always follow code of ethics and never spam.
In this article, I will be discussing about meta tags. How to
use the them effectively without spamming. Its not just another
article about meta tags. Read on to find out more.. Meta Tags
are very important for your website's visibility. Many search
engines read them from your site when you submit it to them.
META tags were developed and made a HTML standard for the
purpose of addressing specific information about your web page
that does not affect the way your page actually looks.
1. Overstuffing Metatags : Believe me or not , there are still
many people and web masters around who think that meta tags are
magic bullet. Its not anymore. Mistake No. 1 : Stuffing keywords
in Title Mistake No. 1 : Stuffing keywords in Description
Mistake No. 1 : The keyword tag.
Mistake No. 1 : Stuffing keywords in Title I agree that its very
important to include your main keywords in title tag. But there
are certain things, which you should remember, as title tag is
the most important tag. · Title tag length should be within 70
characters or 8 words · Title tag should be meaning full and
attract visitors · Use one to two keywords in title tag · Use
plurals & concentrate on keyword phrases rather than just
keyword. · Make sure that title tag is grammatically correct
Syntax of Title Tag :
<title> Your site title goes here < itle>
Now, lets me show you live demo on Title tag. Please search for
"Office furniture uk" in Google, without double quotes. See the
results. This is the first site listed under Google.
Office Furniture Home UK, Home Office Furniture London, Home ...
Office Furniture UK Online Home Office and Small Office Shopping
England, London, UK. Furniture, Office, Seat, Seating, Desk,
Desks ... Description: Uses full screen flash with exit button.
Offering bespoke office furniture solutions for businesses....
Welcome to furniture123 - Bedroom furniture, Office furniture,
.. ... desk uk, child bed, home office furniture, child
furniture, dining furniture, coffee table, office chair,
furniture retailer, upholstery uk, bathroom furniture ...
Welcome to - Blueline Furniture - Ergonomic furniture, Custom
.. ... has pioneered the manufacture of office furniture using
timber ... FIRA GOLD Quality Award as its furniture hire,
minimum ... dealer network across the UK and Channel ...
MFI.co.uk UK's leading furniture retailer offering an extensive
range of quality furniture, including home office furniture,
bedroom furniture, dining furniture, beds ...
These are the above first 4 results arrived for the term "Office
furniture UK" in google. Now have a look over title and
description. The first title does not make any sense and its
stuffed with keywords, though its ranking no.1 it would have
less click thorough as compared to no 2 and no 3. A fair and
attractive title would be something like : Offers quality office
furniture at discount price in UK ( Short title ) UK's leading
furniture retailer offering office furniture at discount (
Perfect one ) Look at the above two titles. It conveys some
message with a perfect sense. The best possible keywords have
been used and its catchy too. Just by crafting a good title you
can increase your click through, even though you are not listed
in top 1 or 2 positions. I hope now you must have got some idea
about crafting good title. Now lets jump to next step. Yeah.
Description Tag.
Description Tag : <meta name="description" content="Your site
description here."> Description tag is still important as most
of the search engines still give importance to it. Sometimes
even google picks up description tag. An ideal description
should be somewhere within 150 to 200 characters, which
correctly describes the content of the page. Make sure to place
2 to 3 important keyword phrases within first 100 characters.
Tip 1 : Make sure that description tag comes immediately after
title tag. Tip 2. Make sure that the first paragraph or the
heading of the page contains 2 to 3 important keyword phrase.
Tip 3. If possible you the targeted keyword phrase in text links
to get boost. Things to avoid : 1. Do not stuff the description
tag with keywords. 2. Do not use generic keywords, use keyword
phrases 3. Do not repeat the title in description
Keyword Tag : <meta name="keywords" content="keyword phrase one,
keyword phrase two"> The keyword tag is almost dead. Most of the
web masters try to flood the key word tag with all sorts of
keywords. Hardly couple of search engines gives a bit of
importance to it. Please note that, directories like Yahoo, Dmoz
& About does not consider keyword tag or meta tags. I do not
recommend using keyword tag. If you use the keyword tag, do not
include more than 8 keyword phrases. Do's 1. Include only
important long keyword phrases. 2. Don't use generic / general
terms. Be specific 3. Use Word tracker to find good keyword
phrases Don'ts 1. Do not spam by stuffing all the possible
keywords. 2. Do not include the keywords, which are not related
to your website 3. Do not repeat any tag ( title, description,
keyword tag ) you might get boost by repeating, but never know
when you will be banned.
Other important things to remember : 1. Meta tags ( Title &
Description ) should reflect the content the page. Do not put
your company name in title. 2. Do not try to target more than 2
to 3 keyword phrases per page 3. Try to include your important
keyword phrases in h1 to h6 tag. 4. Include your important
keyword phrases in <b> </b> tag, bold tag. 5. You will get boost
if you include your important keyword phrases in anchor tag. 6.
Do not forget to Include your important keyword phrases in first
paragraph of your web page. 7. Try to put your important keyword
phrases in alt text. ( for images ) 8. Make sure that title and
description is crafted neatly and attracts both visitors and
search engines.
Robots (Recommended) See the workshop report at W3 for the full
text. <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="ALL | NONE | NOINDEX |
NOFOLLOW">
default = empty = "ALL" "NONE" = "NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW" The filler
is a comma separated list of terms: ALL, NONE, INDEX, NOINDEX,
FOLLOW, NOFOLLOW. Discussion: This tag is meant to provide users
who cannot control the robots.txt file at their sites. It
provides a last chance to keep their content out of search
services. It was decided not to add syntax to allow robot
specific permissions within the meta-tag. INDEX means that
robots are welcome to include this page in search services.
FOLLOW means that robots are welcome to follow links from this
page to find other pages. So a value of "NOINDEX" allows the
subsidiary links to be explored, even though the page is not
indexed. A value of "NOFOLLOW" allows the page to be indexed,
but no links from the page are explored (this may be useful if
the page is a free entry point into pay-per-view content, for
example. A value of "NONE" tells the robot to ignore the page.
Conclusion
There are other meta tags like, Author, language, Copyright,
Re-visit, classification etc. which are ignored by most of the
search engines. Experience says, use the three tags wisely (
title, description & keywords ). You will be attracting both
visitors and search engines.
For more information or any comments / suggestion on this
article please EMail me . I will be glad to clarify the doubts /
queries with live examples.
Author : Rajesh V. Tavakari is SEO Specialist of Website
Promotion & Ranking Services, an Internet Marketing firm
specializing in Website promotion & Website optimization. URL :
http://www.website-promotion-ranking-services.com
You may freely reprint this article on your website or in your
newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author name and
URL remain intact.
About the author:
Author : Rajesh V. Tavakari is SEO Specialist of Website
Promotion & Ranking Services, an Internet Marketing firm
specializing in Website promotion & Website optimization. URL :
http://www.website-promotion-ranking-services.com
