What Are Meta Tags?
Quite simply, Meta Tags are a bunch of code located invisibly at the top or 'header' of your website pages. They include vital information about your page for the search engine robots that sweep the internet regularly. This information is stored in their database, ready to be queried by the search engine user.
That information consists of page title, description, target keywords, page author, subject, language and other techie details too. Now there have been some idiots in the internet marketing niche posting in forums, saying that the Meta tags are not important. In fact they are important, because you want TARGETED traffic to your site for free, right?
Now Google used to rely solely on the Meta tags. But nowadays, the Googlebots also parse the paragraphs text for target keywords, including page headers for relevance. But too many keywords in the content are bad, so don't over-do it.
The Structure of the Meta Tag Code in Page Header
Now, non techies may feel overwhelmed when viewing a page of HTML code. Yes, I can look daunting at the start. But for now, all you need to be focussing on for now is the "header" section, the first section of the web page at the top. Now I assume you have designed your page in an HTML editor. So in your editor, switch over to code view then look at the code between the HEAD and /HEAD tags.
Here's a bare bones example:
title PAGE TITLE /title
META NAME="Reply-to" CONTENT="youATmyemail.com"
META NAME="Author" CONTENT="Your Name"
META NAME="Subject" CONTENT="SUBJECT"
META NAME="Description" CONTENT="SHORT DESCRIPTION"
META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="KEYWORD1,KEYWORD2,etc"
META NAME="Language" CONTENT="English"
META NAME="Revisit-after" CONTENT="15 days"
META NAME="Distribution" CONTENT="GLOBAL"
META NAME="Robots" CONTENT="All"
META NAME="Rating" CONTENT="GENERAL"
META NAME="Classification" CONTENT="Internet Marketing"
Now let's take a look at the most important ones in more detail:
PAGE TITLE
The title should contain your top keyword and if possible some secondary keywords. Don't overdo it here, but make it attract eyeballs from the search engine listings.
META NAME="Reply-to" CONTENT="youATmyemail.com"
This is where you assign the email address you wish to use for site visitor contact. You should never have your email address among site body content, because the spam spider harvesters will grab it and begin sending you tons of spam.
META NAME="Author" CONTENT="Your Name"
Just enter your name here. If someone searches Google using your name, they'll find you more easily. Now if you're a black hatter, you won't be putting your contact details in your Meta tags or page content, as well as on domain name registration. I don't condone black hat SEO methods because they don't work in the long run, because people are more savvy these days and will compare details of your site with WHOIS database.
META NAME="Subject" CONTENT="SUBJECT"
The subject of your web page. Be specific here - must relate to content.
META NAME="Description" CONTENT="SHORT DESCRIPTION"
This one is important as it will show up in the search engines below your page title link. Include your main keywords, your top 3 or 4. It should make sense and include a benefit that your webpage can provide.
META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="KEYWORD1,KEYWORD2,etc"
First go to the free Google Keyword Research tool, enter in your main keyword or keyword phrase. A list of 50 will appear. Now to get the most searched for keywords, click on the top of the 'Global Monthly Searches' column to arrange the results from top to bottom in order of highest searches. Now select the top 10 and copy/paste into notepad. Also note a few other keywords your prospective visitors may type in.
Don't go overboard here, about ten or so targeted words is sufficient.
META NAME="Language" CONTENT="English"
Only change this if your website is for a non English speaking country.
META NAME="Revisit-after" CONTENT="15 days"
Tells the Googlebots to re-spider your site twice a month. Set this to whatever suits you best. If you update your site daily, set this to 1 day, and so on.
META NAME="Distribution" CONTENT="GLOBAL"
Keep this one to distribute globally. Again, only change this if your site is country specific.
META NAME="Robots" CONTENT="All"
This tells the robots whether or not to index the page. "All" will index everything, while "No-Follow" will block the robot software adding your site to the search engine database. Do this if your page is for a private group.
META NAME="Rating" CONTENT="GENERAL"
Set to GENERAL so it's open to all eyeballs, old and young. If it's an adult based site, change this to ADULT
META NAME="Classification" CONTENT="Internet Marketing"
The top level category for your web pages. Choose wisely.
That just about covers all the main Meta tag information you'll need to have you site up and ready for info hungry search engine visitors.
All the Best,
Neil Harland - Author
A Toolkit for the Non-techies - Instant Meta Tag Creator - Free
When you sign up for the Free Software Empire Package
Visit: http://www.codewareonline.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Neil_Harland
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