Meta Tags and Meta Keywords

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Meta Tags and Meta Keywords

Meta Tags are thought to be the be all-end all of search engine rankings. This is not true. Meta Tags are a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for high rankings. Meta tags are designed to provide basic information to the search engine about the site.

Meta tags appear at the top of the HTML document within the <head></head> section of the document. In the following example, nine different types of Meta Tags are identified: Content-Type, Copyright, Resource-type, ObjectType, Author, Rating, Distribution, Description, and Keywords.

The two meta tags of primary interest to search engines are the “Description” and “Keywords” tags. These tags describe the contents and key words for the search engine.

<HTML>

<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

<meta http-equiv="Copyright" content="1998, 1999 MotorCities.com, Inc.">

<meta name="Resource-type" content="Document">

<meta name="ObjectType" content="Journal">

<meta name="Author" content="Car Pictures .com Webmaster">

<meta name="Rating" content="General">

<meta name="Distribution" content="Global">

<meta name="Description" content="Gallery of car pictures, car videos, car sounds, car photos, car photographs, automobile pictures, automobile videos, automobile sounds, automobile photos, automobile photographs, auto pictures, auto videos, auto sounds, auto photos, auto photographs, pictures of cars.">

<meta name="Keywords" content="Gallery of car pictures, car videos, car sounds, car photos, car photographs, automobile pictures, automobile videos, automobile sounds, automobile photos, automobile photographs, auto pictures, auto videos, auto sounds, auto photos, auto photographs, pictures of cars, Porsche pictures, Ferrari pictures, Lamborghini pictures.">

<title>

Car Pictures .com -- Gallery of pictures (photos or photographs), video, sounds, wallpaper and specifications of all cars, motorcycles and all vehicles.

</title>

</HEAD>

Several excellent sources that detail the use of the Meta Tag are:

The Web Developer’s Virtual Library (http://wdvl.com/Authoring/HTML/Head/Meta/ )

Search Engine Watch (http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/webmasters/meta.html)

Internet Marketing Chapter 13: Driving Traffic to Your Site: Understanding and Using Search Engines for Search and Site Optimization.

Adding Keywords Using the META Tag

Maximum -800 characters.

Adding keywords simply requires editing the HTML code and adding the meta tags, as in the following example. The top of a web page source code on your site might look like:

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE>ACME Corporation Devices Information</TITLE>

</HEAD>

<BODY>

<H1>ACME Corporation Innovative Opening Devices Information</H1>

Create a META tag with the following information:

<META name="keywords" content="brochure">

TO ADD ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS

<META name="keywords" content="brochure, widget, wholesale">

The top of your HTML document would then look like:

<HTML>

<HEAD>

<TITLE>ACME Corporation Devices Information</TITLE>

<META name="keywords" content="brochure, widget, wholesale">

</HEAD>

<BODY>

<H1>ACME Corporation Innovative Devices Information</H1>

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT META KEYWORDS

Q) META keywords tag - should I use UPPERCASE, lowercase or a mixture, commas or spaces?

A) Use lowercase, separated by commas, with a space after the comma.

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