Improving Search Engine Positioning with META Tags
| Category: Search Engines - Keywords | Date: 2003-06-12 |
Once youve decided what keywords you want to use to maximize your search engine ranking, its important to understand how the search engines rank your pages. In addition to the pages title, the URL, and contents, two META tags are used by all search engines to index your site. These are the "keywords" and "description" tags.
For those of you who have never dealt with META tags, they are special HTML tags that are intended to provide information about web pages, as opposed to describing the pages layout. META tags are included in the heading of the site, between the and tags. The format of the META tags is:
Keyword Tag:
Description Tag:
Its important to keep in mind that your keywords should really appear in both the "keywords" tag and the "description" tag for maximum impact. The top-priority keywords (those youre trying to rank highest on) should be listed first in the "keywords" tag on your main page, because many search engines will only look at the first 150-200 characters in the META tags contents. Be sure to use different variations, such as "website promotion" and "web site promotion" to catch as many searches as you can. On your other pages, place the most relevant keywords for that pages content first in the META tags.
When you implement the full keyword strategy weve described throughout our site, you have at least a slight chance of moving up far enough in the rankings for it to matter. However, winning and maintaining a good search engine ranking can become a full-time job. Everyone with a site similar to yours is trying to rank high on the same keywords you are, and sometimes completely unrelated sites will rank higher no matter what you do. For example, searching for "printers" on any search engine may give you the home pages of small printshops, or it may give you reviews of inkjet printers.
Other META tags you may want to include are:
to let search engines know to index all pages.
to advise the search engine to reindex monthly.
for general audience sites.
You should also consider getting a PICS rating tag set up, for Internet Explorer users who are using the built-in content control features of that browser. This will be especially important if your sites intended audience includes children.
Although META tags are important, some search engines dont even look at them! However, if you follow our strategy all the way, youve probably done everything you can to win a good ranking, except for one thing getting links from other sites. One of the most important factors search engines use in evaluating your web sites relevance is its "link popularity," or the number of sites that link to yours. For more help on getting other sites to link to yours, see the Marketing section.
About the Author
Dan Thies is the author of "Search Engine Fast Start!", a concise guide to positioning your site with the new breed of search engines. Visit cannedbooks.com
dan@cannedhelp.com
http://www.cannedbooks.com
For those of you who have never dealt with META tags, they are special HTML tags that are intended to provide information about web pages, as opposed to describing the pages layout. META tags are included in the heading of the site, between the and tags. The format of the META tags is:
Keyword Tag:
Description Tag:
Its important to keep in mind that your keywords should really appear in both the "keywords" tag and the "description" tag for maximum impact. The top-priority keywords (those youre trying to rank highest on) should be listed first in the "keywords" tag on your main page, because many search engines will only look at the first 150-200 characters in the META tags contents. Be sure to use different variations, such as "website promotion" and "web site promotion" to catch as many searches as you can. On your other pages, place the most relevant keywords for that pages content first in the META tags.
When you implement the full keyword strategy weve described throughout our site, you have at least a slight chance of moving up far enough in the rankings for it to matter. However, winning and maintaining a good search engine ranking can become a full-time job. Everyone with a site similar to yours is trying to rank high on the same keywords you are, and sometimes completely unrelated sites will rank higher no matter what you do. For example, searching for "printers" on any search engine may give you the home pages of small printshops, or it may give you reviews of inkjet printers.
Other META tags you may want to include are:
to let search engines know to index all pages.
to advise the search engine to reindex monthly.
for general audience sites.
You should also consider getting a PICS rating tag set up, for Internet Explorer users who are using the built-in content control features of that browser. This will be especially important if your sites intended audience includes children.
Although META tags are important, some search engines dont even look at them! However, if you follow our strategy all the way, youve probably done everything you can to win a good ranking, except for one thing getting links from other sites. One of the most important factors search engines use in evaluating your web sites relevance is its "link popularity," or the number of sites that link to yours. For more help on getting other sites to link to yours, see the Marketing section.
About the Author
Dan Thies is the author of "Search Engine Fast Start!", a concise guide to positioning your site with the new breed of search engines. Visit cannedbooks.com
dan@cannedhelp.com
http://www.cannedbooks.com
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