Meta Tag Optimization
Meta tag optimization is an endeavor that some SEO's undertake
to help websites achieve top rankings. Whether or not it is
still of value to optimize meta tags (or use them at all)
has been a hotly debated topic over the last couple of years
in the SEO community.
At our SEO services company we believe that optimizing meta
tags is still of great value. This is because we have first
hand experience of only changing a website's meta tags and
seeing it climb in the SERPs.
There is a mistaken idea in the SEO community perpetuated
on some message boards, blogs and other place that the search
engines don't use the meta tags anymore. This is a false assumption.
Over the years, some of the search engines have stop displaying
the meta tag information in the SERPs, but this does not mean
the SE's don't use the meta tag information to help understand
what a web page is about and rank it accordingly.
The title tag is technically
not a meta tag, though many people lump the title tag in with
meta tags when taking about optimization. The two most important
meta tags for any web page are the Description meta tag and
the Keywords meta tag.
Description Meta Tag
Meta tag optimization in the description area is important
in helping the search engines understand what the page is
about. The description should be keyword rich without devolving
into keyword stuffing that will get a web page penalized.
Writing a complete sentence or two that is short, descriptive
and accurate about the page is important. Using a few keywords
also found in the Keywords meta tag area is also helpful.
Keywords Meta Tag
The keywords meta tag area is often the most abused area
by new SEO's and naïve webmasters. Keyword stuffing (repetition
of the same keywords) has caused many web pages to unknowingly
suffer in the SERPs.
It may seem obvious to many, but they keywords in the Keywords
meta tag need to be words that are actually on the page. Some
webmasters will put keywords found on the site in different
pages in this area but this is a mistake. Also, having the
same meta tags for all pages on a website is another huge
mistake.
The Description and Keywords meta tags need to be unique
to each web page and descriptive of that page only. Using
these tips, one can start cleaning up and optimizing the meta
tag areas right away.
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