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.
9 Comments | Add to Favorites | | Grab Our Feed | Top
