Search Engine Optimization - Meta Tags

April 21, 2005 | Filed Under Traffic Generation, SEO

META is in, META is out. META is in again…and out again. Well, it seems that META tag is in again. What are we talking about here? We’re talking about optimizing a website for search engines! Search engines are very fickle minded because they change methods, techniques, and spider all the time, so, in order to be a search engine optimization expert (at least for your own website), you’ll need to keep in step with the changes that the search engines make so that you can optimize your websites for them.

If you’re not familiar with it, META tags are actually HTML tags which provides information to the search engines when they index or spider your web pages. The information within the META tags is only visible to the search engine spider and not to the normal web surfer. Despite the fact that many search engine experts have tried to manipulate their META tags to ensure higher ranking in search engines, it is still an accepted method of search engine optimization.

There are many types of different META tags if you want to optimize your web pages for the search engines. And here’s a quick look at them.

• Suggested that you include the following META tags, the Abstract, Keyword, Revisit, and the Robots.

• You can choose to add the following META tags in to your web pages to further enhance the optimization level of your web pages: Author, Copyright, Distribution, Expires, and the Language META tags

• When optimizing your web pages for search engines, avoid using the Refresh META tag.

There’s more to search engine optimization than just META tags. META tag is just one of the elements that the search engine will take into account whenever the search engine spider through your website. One other thing that you should do whenever you are trying to optimize your web pages for the search engines is to optimize the usage of the image ALT tags. ALT tags are what your visitors will see if they cannot view the images or if they have disabled the feature in their web browsers. But the ALT tag is not only useful to the viewers who cannot view the images, it is extremely useful to search engines as well. Search engines cannot see your images but through the ALT tag, they are given a rough representation of what the image is all about! For example, your average image tag would be . But if you use your alternate text, the codes will be ”Anti

Now the search engine knows that the site is featuring products and showing images of Anti Aging lotions!

Another important TAG that you should sit down and write out is the description tag. The description tag is used in describing your website and its content in search result pages. The description of your website is what the average user will use to make their decision on whether to click into your website or not, so, consider this and write it very carefully if you want to optimize your website for the search engines.

There’s a lot more where that came from and in fact, search engine optimization can be a whole course by itself. It’s not impossible to optimize your website for search engine yourself. It just takes some courage, effort, desire and maybe a little bit of patience too. Good luck!

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