Meta Tags-the real scoop
Meta Tags were once an absolute necessity for getting your site indexed in any search engine but now times have changed.
Although not as important as they used to be it is still a good thing to put a couple of Meta tags on your site. So what are these Meta tags? Basically they are small snippets of code that the search engine bots use to get information about your site. There are 2 main ones that are used.
Title Meta tag: This will be your web page title-usually a key phrase or containing a key word. HTML will be placed before the body and after the head. This will be your 1st Meta tag. This is what it will look like <head> <title> Your site title</title> </head
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Why you use Meta tags on a website
-Linking: the title is what your link partners will use when they link to you. -For search engine searches: this is what will be used in the search engine directories and this is what searchers will see when they are searching. Do not use keyword stuffing and make your title relevant to help targeted visitors reach your site. -For visitors: when visitors view your site in their browser they will see your title. Try to make it short so that it is not cut off and of course relevant so visitors know where they are. -Indexing your site: for those search engines who use Meta tags, it will help them understand the subject of your site and place it accordingly. This is another reason why it should be relevant.
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Description: this tag will appear under your title in the search engine searches.
Ideally it should not contain more than 14-20 words and have your main idea of your business in the beginning. Do not make this sound like an advertisement but do make it into an attention-grabbing headline. You want searchers to be drawn to your site. Place your description tag just under your title tag. It will look like this.
<meta name="description" content="Brief description of the contents of your page.">
Why are Meta Tags no longer in favor?
-Keyword spamming: many sites to try to trick the search engines have used this tactic. It has resulted in a lot of sites that are not relevant for searches and Google’s search engine quality to go down. This best solution Google found for this is to ignore keyword Meta tags. -Optimized content: Google uses optimized content more for indexing sites. -Relevancy is a top priority for Google
As you can see there are just 2 Meta tags that are important the Title and the Description. Both these tags are made up from your main key phrase. Put some thought into this as this is how your site and its content pages will be found. when you do this you will see that Meta tags are not that hard to figure out and get your site into a good position with the search engines.
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