Meta Tags and Search Engine Optimization
Meta tags are hidden HTML tags placed in the <head></head> section of a web page. These tags are used to describe various aspects of a web page like Keywords, Description, Author Info, Copyright info and much more.
In terms of Search Engine Optimization there are two Meta Tags which are really important and these are Meta Keywords and Meta Description tags.
Sample Meta Tags:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Meta Tags</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="This line will be displayed in search results below the title">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="keywords, meta tags, meta tags seo">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Meta Description Tags
The content of meta description tag is displayed below the title in search results however now a days this info is ignored by most search engines as meta description tag is often misused with misleading or even false information about a page.
It doesn’t mean that we should stop using this tag as some search engines still index the contents of meta description tag for its search results. If we don’t specify meta description tag, the search engines will usually extract first few lines from the body text.
Normally search engines will index the first 140 - 160 characters of meta description tag content. I would suggest use the description thats sells the page and make sure its the summary of the page content.
Meta Keywords Tags
As the name suggest Keywords are the important words and phrases which describes the content to find out more about keywords and all related terms check out my previous post on All about keywords and search engine optimization.
Content is the king, most of the search engines rely more on the content and if you use the keywords in meta tags its an advantage and help search engines to correlate the most relevant information to display in search results. Before selecting the keywords do some research as described in my previous post.
Share your Inputs
Please feel free to provide your inputs in the comments. The next post in this series will be about HTML Tags and Search Engine Optimization, if you have any questions about HTML Tags and SEO please drop me a line and I will answer it in the upcoming post.
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Hi Mohit,
I came to your blog from the comment that you left in my blog.
You have a very good blog design and I really like your design. Hats off for your design skills :-).
–
Sudar
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@Sudar, thanks for the feedback. Let me know if I can help in any way!
Oh well.. the SEO plugin should take care of this for me..
Great post…limit your descriptions to about 160 characters, don’t repeat your keywords inside the meta tag, it will be seen as spam by the search engines.
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Yeah, I’m using WordPress All in One SEO pack..best plug-in ever!
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i ever hear that meta tag very influence google adsense ads display? is that true mohit? futhermore, can i use line space in meta tag or i need to use “_” character? your answer will be highly appreciated mohit, as i very curious about that…
I always thought that meta keywords were useless for SEO, but if that is true, danielrannu, I may have to pay closer attention to them. Good post.
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Hello, I just found your blog and I’m very impressed with the design.
In any case, I’m trying hard to learn about SEO and all that and while some say it really doesn’t matter about the meta tags is passe and such, I figure, it can’t hurt right?
Thanks for sharing these tips, i made some modifications on my page, i think that is better now.. thanks… ;)))))
@Renato: Its always a pleasure to help
Another nice post.
The title and description tag are the most important head tags but content is definitely king and good content will out perform well tweaked head tags.
meta tags just don’t carry the weight they use to. the days they work well for ad copy text etc for your listing to encourage click thrus, but they don’t help on your rankings
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Another good reason to use your Meta Description tag is to control your marketing message when your link is displayed in the Search Engine results. Without a description, Google may scrape content off your page or use the default directory description.
Matt Cutts talks about using the NOODP tag here:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-supports-meta-noodp-tag/
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But for this post the META Tag is the same of post title - usually i play with meta tag line with “All in one SEO” - that allow me to choosing fancy title for my posts.
You are right Shanker All in One SEo pack is really useful
as many of you might know Google use 1st paragraph of your content (usually 1st 50 words) while there is no way you can force Google to use what description you want it to display for your pages in SERPS All I one SEO pack is particularly helpful here it gives you some control on description by adding optional description filed which allows me to decide what description Google should use for my pages
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