Julian Brinkley Raleigh Web Design

Optimizing Meta Tag Content

by: Mascarr Rooney

META tags have three basic components: META title, META description and META keyword tags. Though a META tag is not a necessary item, it should be included in all websites.

The META title is the title of the document. The META title can include the title of the page and name of the site, for example Vincent Van Gogh Sunflowers 1888- Artprintstore.com. You can use all kinds of symbols in the META title. The most common symbols used in the META title are semi colons and dashes. Your META title should briefly describe the content of the site accurately. If you are selling something, the META title should  be written in such as way that captivates the attention of the visitors. When visitors see the META title, they will want to click on the link to find out more. Some people like to put keywords in the META title. It is not a good practice to stuff the title with keywords. An example of a keyword stuffed META title is "Pet Dog Store, Dog Toys, Dog Food, Dog Gadgets -Petdogstore.com". If you attempt to stuff the META title with keywords, you will find that you won't rank well in the search engines. It is sufficient to include 1 - 2 keywords in the META title. Your META title should be kept as short as possible. It should not be too long because the search engine won't list all the words. It only chooses the part that contain the relevant keywords to display.

META description is used to describe the content of the page. You should write a unique META description for every page. The META description should not be in all CAPS to attract attention. META keywords contain keywords that are relevant to the page. You can insert 5 keywords in the META keywords with each keyword being separated by comma.

A decade ago, META tag were used to rank a website. Later, people abused this by stuffing the META tag with a lot of keywords. Search engine companies like Google frowned on this practice, and to discourage it changed their the algorithms. Now, there are many factors for ranking on the search engines. Many people assume that Google doesn't use META tag to rank websites anymore. This is not true. META tag are still being used to rank a website if the search engine cannot find relevant keywords. The META keyword and descriptions still have their place in SEO. It is best to include them in a website so that you can take the full advantage of the META tag.

META tags are also useful in websites that use a lot of flash. Because flash cannot be read by the search engine, websites that are built of flash are not typically SEO friendly. Flash sites can still be indexed by the search engines but it takes a longer time. It is harder to rank a flash site on search engines than it is a JQuery or Mootools animated site. To make the website SEO friendly, you can include text in the navigational structure and META tags in every single page of your flash site. In this way, the search engine will read the META tag when ranking you in the search result.