Are Meta Tags Still Important? Do It Yourself Search Engine Optimization Tips

by Nancy Talley

You know that getting a high page ranking in one of the top search engines should be the first priority of your marketing plan.

Although not as significant as they once were, meta tags are still an important aspect of search engine optimization.

This article discusses ways that you should use the Keyword and Description meta tags in your overall optimization strategy.

What Are Meta Tags And How Should I Use Them?

Meta tags are HTML tags that contain information about the content of your web page.

Meta tags are located at the top of the page between the tags. To view them, right click anywhere on your page and click "View Source."

If you don't see any, add them to your page before you submit it to a search engine.

The most important tags to include are:

1) Description Meta:

Keep in mind that many search engines use the contents of your description tag to summarize your site.

2) Keywords Meta:

The better you know your target customer the better your choices will be. Think like your customer in order to make a list of keyword phrases.

Test your list on one of the search engines.

See how your competition ranks and what keywords they are using.

Don't forget misspellings! If one of your keywords is commonly misspelled in searches, include the misspelling in your keyword Meta tag.

What Else Do The Search Engines Look For?

Search engine algorithms change frequently, however two important factors are:

1) Link popularity - how many pages link to my site and what is the "quality" of each link? Think of it as the number of "endorsements" you site has in your target market.

2) Click-through - the number of clicks received by each site in a search engine's results page.

Both of these "off the page" measurements are influenced by the quality of your content.

Remember, however, that the quality of your site is your best marketing tool. Tips and tricks for getting search engine listings won't help if your site is poorly written or organized.

How Do I Submit My Pages?

You can submit your pages through a service or you can do it yourself.

To manually submit your pages use the Add URL form for any of the following search engines:

Google Submission page (free): http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Alta Vista's Basic Submit (free): http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new

Ask Jeeves Site Submit: http://ask.ineedhits.com/

Expect a long wait. Plan to submit weekly until your site is listed.

Things To Remember

Don't repeat tags on a page and don't repeat keywords excessively within a tag. Both of these are considered spamming and the search engine may blacklist you.

Finally, don't forget the tag! Most search engines use the contents of your title tag as the name of the link to your site. Do you want to appear at the top of the Google results as UNTITLED?

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