Creating Proper Meta Tags by Tanya Martin

First you might be thinking, search engines don't use meta tags anymore. I'm here to tell you that you are wrong. Google doesn't use them the same way or the way that most people expect but they still use them. If your page is all images and no text, then they will pull the description off your meta tag. It will aslo use the description when you page is just flash. Even when you have text, sometimes it will pull part of your description, nice place to have a target pitch.

The new Yahoo! still uses meta tags. From everything I have seen, it gives them more weight than Google. Okay, now that we have that straight, let's go on.

Hopefully you are here to learn a little more about meta tags and not what they are. This article is not going to explain tags, it is going to tell you how to use them properly.

First, your Description tag should be one to two sentences, that is plenty. More then that and your just wasting your time. The first sentence should be enticing internet users into clicking your link. Example, you are building a site about "Search Engine Optimization":

Description 1: This site is all about search engine optimization.

Description 2: Search engine optimization, news, articles, tutorials and seo tools.

Which one would you click? I would go for #2. Try to not be generic.

Now how about keywords? 5-10 keywords is plenty. I usually go for 5. And I put them in the order of how relevant they are to the page. If I have a page on seo, and I mention seo, internet marketing, online marketing and optimization. My keywords would be like this: seo, search engine optimization, internet marketing, online marketing, search optimization.

I always put the most important and relevant keyword first.

All other meta tags are up to you and what is relevant for your page.

 

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