How To Create Meta Tags To Optimize Your Web Site
By Martin Lemieux
Posted Monday, October 18, 2004
In this article, I will teach you the basics about Meta Tags and their functions. Learning how to create Meta Tags is essential for your companies web site ranking.
What Are Meta Tags?
Meta Tags are a series of sentences created by either you or your web designer in order to let the search engine know what each individual web page in your web site is about. These meta tags are NOT visible to your visitors but are within your code for search engines to read when they visit your site.
Your meta tags will help the search engine determine:
- What your page is about
- Whether your meta tags relate to your content within your page - The relevance of your content - Were to rank your site within the search engine.
VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT META TAGS!
The key to Meta Tags is to let search engines know what the content within your web page is supposed to be about! Creating meta tags that do not relate to your content will give very negative results and may get your web site banned from search engines.
Ex. Your content is about "Creating Meta Tags".
You'll want to include within your content specific information about "Creating Meta Tags". Once your content is complete, select a few "Key Phrases" and include them within your meta tags. Make an attempt to keep each individual web page about 1 specific topic. This will help your page relavance within search engines.
What do Meta Tags look like and how do I view them?
To view meta tags it s actually quite simple if you know what to look for! There are 3 specific things to look for: 1) Title, 2) Description, 3) Keywords.
Here's what an example of what meta tags look like... Before you say "Huh?", I'll explain everything after the given example.
Web Site Key Word Optimization & Meta Tags
Ok now... Here's what you're looking at...
This is the title you will see at the top of your web browser! The title may be the most important of all 3 meta tags. If you look at the top of your browser, our title meta tag will read "How To Create Meta Tags To Optimize Your Web Site".
TIP: You must include the "code" indicated in bold in order for your meta tags to work. So many web sites have meta tags that are never read by search engines because there is a flaw within the meta tags. Don't forget to include the "closing tags" ( "> ).
Please Note: Each indivdual search engine looks at your key words differently. No one knows what the search engines are looking for except for the people that program them. Any business claiming that they know what search engines are looking for are trying to sell you false hopes.
How to view a web page's meta tags! Right click on your mouse and select the option "View Source". This will open another word document to show you the web site's "Code". Meta Tags are typically near the top of the document.
Try it out now and see if you can view this page's meta tags!!!
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About The Author:
Martin R. Lemieux
Smartads - President
(http://smartads.info) Affordable Web Site Design & Web Site Marketing
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