Episode III: SEO 1 on 1
June 9th, 2008Meta Tags
Meta Tags are information inserted into the “head” area of web pages. They are placed between the “opening” and “closing” HEAD tags. The data they provide cannot be seen by those viewing your pages in browsers. Instead, Meta elements provide information about the webpage, most often to help search engines categorize them correctly. Meta tags, for example, can tell a browser what “character set” to use, the page refresh rates. etc.
Example:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<meta name="keywords" content=
"Define keywords for some search engines" />
<meta name="description" content=
"Define a description of your web page" />
<title>Title</title>
</head>
For more in-depth infomation on Meta Tags visit this site …
Next, we move on to the Title Tag element.
The Title Tag
Simply put, the title tag element defines the title of the document.
Let’s make one thing clear upfront; the title tag is not actually a meta tag… and the title tag is regarded as one of the most important factors in achieving high search engine rankings. For instance, adjusting only the title tags of your pages may generate quick and appreciable differences in your page rankings. And because the words in the title tag are what appear in the clickable link on the search engine results page (SERP), changing them may result in more clickthroughs if the right title is applied
The title tag is considered to be one of the “big three” in search engine algorithmic weight scail. In importance, it equals that of the text content on a webpage, It is the single most important piece of information the search engines use when deciphering your webpage. For that reason, including your target keyword phrase or phrases in your title is very desirable.
Things to Remember When Creating Your Title Tag
- All titles should be typed in Title Case (or Proper Case). An excellent resource for learning title case capitalization rules is Writer’s Block – Writing Tips – Capitalization in Titles.
- For nonfiction or reference websites, titles should be written to clearly indicate what is available on the page.
- Every page should have a unique title that reflects its content.
- The title should be self-explanatory and clearly communicate the contents of the page to the reader, thereby giving the reader a context.
- Home page titles should clearly indicate what is available on the page, and for the purpose of web credibility, they should clearly indicate what organization is represented on the page. By this I mean that it would be beneficial for you to include the name of your organization in the title tag of your home page. Failure to do this could significantly lower your Web credibility.
Now that we have dealt somewhat extensively with the various tag element within the head tag, we shall now move on to the body contents, starting with text (copywrite).
Writing for Web and SEO
The phrase “content is king” is only true if the content is relevant and clarifies the subject at hand. When writing for the web, there are 2 primary audiences being addressed — the person reading and the search engine bots or spiders. Catering to both can make writing for the web a bit more of a challenge. Remember this, however: What is good for the searcher is most likely good for the search engines, but what is good for search engines might NOT necessary be good for the searcher or human reader.
So, start with a good understanding of your audience and of what you must do to attract and hold their attention. Then, be absolutely certain that you have an excellent grasp of the subject matter under discussion. Be systematic in your approach, knowing what key phrases and words to use, and be as natural as you can, without overuse of technical jargon that will confuse the “average” reader. And, finally, get right to the point. Choose your words carefully. Make everything as clear and concise as possible. Verbosity is a no-no that will lose your audience very quickly. Simplicity rules!
(In our next installment, we will discuss the need to “give up” you site to your customers.)
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