Handy
Tip : The better you structure your meta tags to mirror your
web page content the better chance you have of achieving good
search engine rankings.
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What are Meta Tags?
Meta
tags are HTML tags that help you control how some search engines may index your
site, by using the keywords and descriptions you provide.
The keyword and description meta tags that you include in the html of
your pages, provide information to search engines that will not be displayed
by web browsers. Before you submit your pages to the search engines, it
is crucial that you make sure they are search engine friendly. Here
are some basic tips on what to do.
Keywords
are the search terms your visitor enters into the search box when trying
to find your site. It is very difficult to get high rankings based on
keywords, so don't get too involved with keywords. Instead, you need to
think about KEYPHRASES.
The easiest way to do this is to ask yourself, friends and family, what
words they would give a search engine when looking for your site and by
searching for sites with similar content to what you have.
If
your business is geographically restricted, then your keyphrases should reflect
this. For example, if you are an accountancy firm in Dallas, Texas, then include
this in your keyphrase as by just putting "accountants" will not likely
get you targeted traffic.
You should then choose at least 3 main keyphrases
which suit the content of your site and include these keyphrases in your
description, title and body text. This is important so let
us say it again. Include your keyphrases in your description, page title and in
your body text. Here
are a few more tips.
Keep your title no more than 6 to 10
words long.
Keep your keywords meta-tag length between 200 and 500 characters.
Your description should be no more than 200 characters long.
You should
have different meta tags on every page of your site.
The
first paragraph
The first paragraph of your page is
very important and should reflect and expand upon everything in your title and
meta tags. You need to have all those keyphrases in it.
Try to put this
first paragraph as close to the <BODY> tag as possible. Avoid putting graphics
or other HTML in front of your first paragraph as much as you can and where you
do, for the sake of asthetic design, make use of the alt tag to place keyphrases.
You can also get a good idea of what keyphrases and page design techniques work
well, by looking at other pages that do rate high with the major search engines.
Here is an example of simple Meta Tags for a Book Review site
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Book
review. Reading resources. Discounted books</TITLE>
<META NAME="keywords"
CONTENT="book review, reading resource, discounted books, list discounted
books">
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="A book
review and reading resource page including a great list of discounted books">
</HEAD>
Once you have chosen your keywords and keyphrases, use the Hypergurl meta tag
generator at http://www.hypergurl.com/meta.html to create your tags.
If you are strapped for time then the Hypergurl search engine submit is a good
alternative
http://www.hypergurl.com/submit.html © 2001 - 2006 All rights
reserved. The above article was written by Tanya Puntti and John Hodgkin of www.hypergurl.com.
Permission to use this article, in total or part of, is granted as long as this
information and link is included.
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