Meta tags are a vital part of your website. If you want to get a top search engine position, you must put the right content in your meta tags.
Meta tags optimisation is not magic. In fact, to get top search engine rankings there are just a few simple things you need to know. They set apart successful meta tags from the majority of unsuccessful ones. Do these simple things and you’re almost guaranteed to get a top search engine position.
First, it’s worth noting that many search engines now ignore meta tags altogether. But don’t get complacent because of this. The biggest search engine, Google, still relies heavily on meta tags – particularly the TITLE tag – when it ranks your site.
Given that Google provides more than 35 per cent of all search engine traffic worldwide, it’s important to optimise your site for this search engine above all others.
The all-important TITLE tag
So let’s start with the all-important TITLE tag. This is the key to creating successful meta tags if you want to optimize your site for Google.
(Before you can create your meta tags, you must select the right keywords for your site. If you haven’t already done this, you need to read the page on this site dedicated to keywords.
Once you have selected your keywords, you are ready to start writing meta tags that will get you a top search engine position.)
It is vital that you put your keywords in the TITLE tag. Don’t just put your company name. This is a mistake that many website owners make. You can put your company name as well as your keywords, if you like. (But if your title is more than 10 words, the last words will probably not appear in the browser bar.)
Sometimes the TITLE is the only information about your site that appears in search results. The TITLE is what people use for bookmarks. So it’s important to get it right.
Using your primary keywords in your TITLE tag is the most powerful thing you can do to boost your search engine ranking.
The meta DESCRIPTION tag
After the TITLE, the description is your second chance to persuade people to visit your website – or not. So it should be an accurate guide to what’s on the page. And it must be worth reading.
Ideally, you should use exactly the same keywords to start your description tag as you used for the TITLE. Then you can elaborate further on the content of the page.
How many keywords should you put in your meta KEYWORD tag?
The third meta tag is the keyword tag. A few years ago, people used to think the more keywords they could cram into this tag the better. They would list hundreds of keywords. Now, this is a waste of time. In fact, most search engines regard it as “spamming” and will penalize you if you repeat too many keywords.
So limit the number of keywords on each page of your site. It’s best to focus on just a few keywords for each page.
It is also important to use only lower case type in the meta keyword tag. This is because most search engine queries are typed in lower case.
As you can see meta tags are not rocket science. It doesn’t take much to create successful meta tags. And if you do it right, you are almost guaranteed to dramtically increase your search engine ranking.