Meta Tags - An Important Part of Every Web Page

Meta tags are an absolute must from a search engine optimisation perspective, there are many mistakes that can be made by not including these or even trying to 'spam' the SE's using them so heres a quick summary of the three main ones:

Meta Page Title Tag

The title tag is supported by all search engines and should be considered as the most important element in your optimisation process. Why is this you may ask? Well the page title is the first thing search engine spiders and human visitors will see. Your title appears at the top of the page in the browser and the title also becomes the clickable link in the search engine listings and should therefore be concise, accurate and include your keywords.

Meta Description Tag

The meta description tag is supported by most of the search engines, it is not as important as the Title Tag because the web page viewer will not see it but the description is sometimes used in the search listings under the title tag and as such should be an accurate and keyword driven description of what the page value is. Google usually uses an abstract of the page content and will use the description tag only if it cannot find enough on page content to form a page description.

Meta Keywords Tag

Due to massive abuse this tag is very rarely useful but in my opinion should still be used. Include your main keywords in here but do not go crazy, 4 or 5 is more than enough usually. It is far better to include your keywords in the on page copy and will hold better weight with the SE's as such. Please remember however that it still has to read well to the human eye.

The Meta Tags should be placed between the HEAD> and /HEAD> tags of your web page and should follow the following format:

Page Title

Mike - Webmaster and eBay Power Seller at Online Auction Trader

We offer free templates, information and product sourcing to enable you to develop your online auctions into a sustainable, long term income stream.

We also operate a Traders Forum where any advice can be sought on any aspect of Online Trading.

More SEO Articles

MLM and SEO - Bad Business! No Business!
MLM has been around way before the Internet. It is a few steps above a chain letter.

How and Why to Avoid the SEO Mania
The WhyBut what is the reality of reaching a number 1 position on any of the big three search engines ? Google, Yahoo, and MSN ? and staying there? Somewhere between a remote possibility to impossible.Why? Because there are well over 16 million websites battling for the number 1 position on ?any? given day.

Search Engine Optimization Lies & Misconceptions
In a perfect world, everyone would be honest.In a perfect world, no one would violate search engine policies to try get a better listing.

The Easiest Way to Your Google Sitemap
Google Sitemaps is a new tool for website owners and publishers, released by Google themselves. It allows you to submit a sitemap (a document that contains links to every page of your site) from your own homepage in .

Should You Buy Text Links?
You can rank number one (Or at least in the top ten) for just about any search phrase by just buying text link ads, even if the web site isn't related to the search phrase in anyway, it can still rank in the top ten of the search results. Some web site owners see this as the only true way to the top ten.

Guide to Search Engine Optimization
What is Search Engine Optimization?Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short is modification done in the web site design, coding, content and/or structure of a web site in an effort to achieve the higher ranking within search engines. Search Engine Optimization are done to attend the highest ranking in the search engine results for some targeted keywords or key phrases.

Torpedo and Sink the Ship SS Search Engine Ranking
I was recently contacted by one of my best clients who asked me what I thought of his decision to make a major change to one of his highly ranked pages. His initial concern was that visitor sales conversion ratio was low.

RSS Feeds - a Website Owners Friend in Disguise
We've all heard about it-it seems like all the buzz right now in the search engine marketing industry is RSS. If you're a website owner, than there are two ways your website can benefit from using RSS on your website-you can provide an RSS feed or, for the not-so-technically-inclined folks like me, you can use an RSS feed to keep your site's content fresh.

Over Optimization and the OOP - Does a Penalty Exist?
If you have questions about whether or not the Over-Optimization Penalty (OOP) exists or not, then you obviously haven't pushed the limits enough with your own website optimization or organic SEO efforts to have experienced the joys of running into the OOP (Over-Optimization Penalty).I'm sure you're probably thinking: "prove it".

Anchor Text Optimization
Anchor Text (also called phrase linking) can significantly improve your web pages relevance in the search engines. Optimized or keyword rich anchor text can help your web site gain positioning in the search engines as well as help drive better targeted search traffic.