The Importance of Meta Tags in your Web Content

Crafting your meta tags is the most important step in Search Engine submission.

A meta tag is a special HTML tag that provides information about a web page. It provides information such as what the page is about, and whichkeywords represent the  page’s content.

Many search engines use this information when building their indices. The most important meta tags you need to focus on are the Title, Keywords and Description tags.

KEYWORDS

Keywords are words that your customers would enter into a search engine to find your site. E.g. while searching for a content writer you would type ‘web content writer’ ,  ‘web writer’ , ‘Website content writing company’ , ‘online writer’ as possible keyword searches.

While keeping in mind your target audience, make a list of keywords and key  phrases that describe your site. Put yourself in their shoes and think of the words they would type in a search engine to find you. Come up with as many keywords and key  phrases as you can.

Use plurals – e.g. ‘web writers’, ‘web content writers’

Use important words in different forms – e.g. ‘write web content’, ‘web writing’ , ‘website content’ , ‘online content for websites’

Don’t use the same word more than 4 times. Try using it in different forms instead. E.g. web site, web-site, web sites. Using the same keyword more than 4 times may be considered spamming in some  search engines and may cause your site to be blacklisted.

Keep your keywords meta tag length between 200 and 500 characters.

TITLE AND DESCRIPTION

Title
– This is what appears on the title bar when you open a website. This is also the link you see in the search results page of any search engine.

Description
– This is the description of the site (1-2 lines) which appears along with the title in the search results page.

An example of a Title and Description

Title – Web Content Writer and SEO copywriting services

Description – Webwriter offers a full range of web content writing including content management, SEO copywriting, e-newsletter creation and web content consultation.

The golden rule while preparing your pages for search engine submission is that all your important keywords should appear in your title, description and content of your web page.

Make sure that your title and description is populated with your most important keywords. At the same time it should be a ‘grabber’, as your potential clients will read your title and description and based on that synopsis of your site, decide to click and enter your site.

Keep your  title between 15 and 20 words and your description  between 100 and 200 characters.

While preparing your web pages remember to also use your important keywords in your alt tags. Some search engines also index the alt tags. An alt tag is a name given to  an image that is used in your site.

The next (optional) step in search engine submission is to use free online tools to make sure that your site does not have any spelling mistakes, dead links, HTML and  browser compatibility problems.

These tools also test your site loading time and give your site an overall ranking. They are very useful and will take only a minute of your  time. This will ensure that your site is ready to be submitted to the search engines