What the h--- are Meta tags?????
"Now, about those META TAGS, I don't have a clue."
This is the message that I get all too often when visiting
sites. Part of the free services that I offer involves not
only visiting the front of a web site and making suggestions
for better layout and fewer or optimized graphics but
also looking at the source code (HTML HyperText Markup
Language). This is how the computer reads your web site
and what you physically see is the result.
In the beginning web sites were built by writing this HTML
into a text editor and submitting the completed code to
the web. Since that time more and more WISIWIG (what
you see is what you get) editors have become available
and all this coding is done in reverse. It is therefore my
assumption that tens of thousands of web pages are on
the Internet without their creators even knowing any HTML
basics, let alone what a META Tag is, where it is placed
or what it's purpose is.
Let's take a quick look at how search engines index your
site. First of all this is all done mechanically. A robot goes
to the website and reads the source code (HTML). It then
indexes the site using "Keywords". These are the words
that the public uses to find information on the web. You've
used search engines in this way and most of the time end
up with a lot of sites that are totally unrelated to your quest.
Why? Because they either lack META tags or their tags
have unrelated keywords stuffed into them. It tends to
make your life difficult when there is information that you
are trying to get.
The search engines robots will read the title tag first. The
title tag is essential and if you use your WISIWIG editor
and it asks for a title and you call it index, for example
this is how your page will be listed on the search engine.
Your title tag needs to have the name of your company
and a few words that tell what the page is about. Note
that search engines give more weight to the title of your
page than to any other tag, especially if the text is repeated
in the body of your page.
If there are no other META tags, the robot will then take the
first words of text that follow. This could be disasterous
especially if you are utilizing frames and/or tables on your
site. The first words that are indexed in a table for example
are those located in the upper left cell (or column). Those
keywords that the search engines robot may be capturing
might be something like: table1graphic.gif.
META tags tell the robot how to index your site. Here you
are the director. How do you want your page to come up
in a search? Hits are important, yes, but sales are the
ultimate goal. The listing of keywords that are not relevant
may bring you lots of hits but not sales when your site is
not relevant to what the individual was seeking when he
arrived at your site.
Next, what tags do you add and where? The three most
important META tags are:
1) Title tag
2) Description tag and
3) Keyword tags.
These go in the "Head" of the document. Many other tags
can go here also, such as instructions for robots to review
this site every 30 days or not to index it at all etc.
Your META tags should be added in a text editor. This is
a simple process and most text editors will do the job
quite nicely. This process will make no change as to how
your page looks. Most WISIWIG type HTML editors will
have a way for you to see your source code with a click
of your mouse. It is a good idea even if you are using one
of these editors to learn a bit about pure HTML through a
tutorial. One of the best I have found is at:
http://www.webreference.com. Then download a free
HTML editor that shows you your page in pure HTML
format. It is not that difficult to learn. To get a Free HTML
editor, you can go to my download site and take your
pick. http://www.sitemaven-design.com/download.htm
Article by Patricia Dollar