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Google is currently the most popular search engine on the web. You simply must
get a high ranking in Google and the other major search engines (in the top-10
at a minimum) if you want your web site to be a big success! In addition to being the most
often used search engine in its own right, Google also provides the basic search results for other mega-sites, including
AOL and others. By following a few simple SEO guidelines, you can watch your site quickly climb up the Google ladder and your
targeted traffic will increase right along with it. This article will
demonstrate how to make the most effective use of meta tags to aid your website
in its climb up that ladder!
It's very important to use "search engine friendly" meta tags. Meta tags give a web browser
such as Internet Explorer or Netscape very important and detailed information about your
web page.
Here are the most important meta tags for attaining a top ranking in
the major search engines:
1 - Title Tag - The title tag is the single most important meta tag on your web
pages. You should use a few of your primary keywords in your title tag. For example, the title tag on
our homepage is:
<META NAME="TITLE" CONTENT="RLROUSE Directory & Informational Resources">
As you can see, my title tag contains 3 very important keywords: directory,
informational and resources. It also includes the search phrase
"informational resources". This title provides what is known as "spider food".
When
a search engine's spider crawls my homepage, it finds these keywords in the title tag. It also finds
these same keywords liberally sprinkled throughout the content (text) on the page. This effectively "links" the keywords
and the key phrase in the title meta tag to the content on the page. This
"linking" provides a very high level of "relevance" for my site when someone
visits a search engine and performs a search on one of my keywords, helping my site rank highly in the search results
for those keywords or key phrases.
2 - Description Tag - Another very important meta tag is the "description" tag. My description
meta tag is:
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="One of the web's largest and fastest
growing Directories and Information Repositories.">
As you can see, my description meta tag contains each of my keywords and my key
phrase. This is extremely important because it ties in with the title meta tag and the
content on the page.
When other websites link to yours (also a very important factor for a high
search engine ranking), they link to your site using link "anchor text". The
link anchor text is easily recognizable as the "clickable" part of the link.
By providing the other webmaster with specific anchor text that includes your
keywords, that anchor text will tie in seamlessly with your page's meta tags and keyword-rich
content. This makes for a very well optimized web page for search engine ranking purposes. Proper meta tags
coupled with effective linking strategies form the backbone of a good site
optimization (SEO) plan for Google and the other major search engines.
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