Getting Started With SEO

#1 – Meta Tags

Many SEO’s these days say that your meta tags are not that important anymore and I also believe that to be true to an extent.  While it is true that search spiders crawl your website for content, it is also true that websites will still read your meta tags before reading the rest of your site. It is also true that there are other meta tags that can have an effect on your site but we are only going to discuss the basic 3 which are the Title, Description and Keyword Tags.

#  The Title Tag – The Title Tag is by far the very most important and effective Meta Tag.  When you add a bookmark or favorite to your browser the test you see there is from your title tags. In addition search engines will normally use your title in their listings and when they crawl your site.

<title>Put Your Title Here</title>

The most basic but important step to take when thinking about applying seo to any website is the title tags.  Your website’s title is always displayed in search engine results and is the first thing people see from your site.  Not only should your title be catchy but it also has to describe your site using keywords preferably. I believe your title tag is the most important meta tag in regards to seo so you may as well spend the 5 minutes doing it right.

If you own a website that contains many different categories with separate pages for those categories like a store or even some blogs it would be wise to create individual titles for each of those pages like I have started doing at this online mall. So far I have only done the first few categories, Automotive, Babies etc.

*You should always try to place your best keywords at the front of your title tag even before your company name if you choose to add it. This gives those keywords better weight.

By giving each page it’s own title, search engines will view this page almost like it is it’s own website. This is one of the simplest steps you can take that can have the largest impact. If you have a large site it can take time but it is worth the effort so do it.

Try to use as few words as possible but try to use related keywords that describe your site and what it does such as <>Webdevoman – Web Development Blog<> There are some that believe they can cheat the system by cramming in keywords etc but this will only end up having a negative impact on your site. I would suggest using your company name and a very short description using relevant keywords.

*     Use No More Than 5 – 10 Words In Your Title Tag

# Description Tag – While the impact of this tag is negligible I believe it is still worth the time it takes to do it. I also believe that any keywords or search phrases used in any of your tags will have an effect on the keyword weight just like any other keyword will have anywhere on your site or maybe even more so.  While some search engines such as Google may not view your meta tags as important, other search engines and directories may.

<meta name="description" content="Your Description Goes Here">

Your Description tag should contain related keywords but should also describe your website or the page it’s on.  I believe this tag should contain no more than 10 to 15 words with less being better than more and this should also be readable.

*     Use No More Than 10 – 15 Words In The Description Tag

# Keyword Tag - This tag is really very simple to create. Find the 10 to 12 absolute best keywords that describe your site and separate them with a space.  Honestly I have always used a comma to separate keywords but while doing the research for this article I was actually swayed to change my opinion and I will be listing my keywords with no space as I have suggested here.

<meta name="keywords" content="Place Your Keywords Here">

The reason for this seemed like it could be a valid reason but I don’t believe anyone really knows for sure whether a space or a comma makes any difference when listing your keywords. Some say that when you place a comma it actually separates the keywords while a space will allow search engines to use the keywords in various search phrases instead of individual keywords.

*     Use No More Than 15 – 20 Words In your Keywords Tag

I hope you found this article useful but please feel free to participate and speak your mind on this topic.

Thanks For reading,

Webdevoman