Most search engines today, and especially Google, pay little if any attention to a site’s meta tags and do not use them in their rankings process. Google in fact does not even look at them. For too long people stuffed their keywords and description tags with all kinds of irrelevant keywords. But even still there are some reasons why you would still want to make sure that they are filled out correctly.

While the keywords meta tag is basically ignored by Google some search engines use it as a small part of their rankings process. They might look at this tag and then look at that page’s content to see if those keywords are actually in the content. It may not make a huge difference in your rankings but think of it as crossing your “t’s” and dotting your “i’s”. Keep it short and only add the keywords that are found on that page.

The meta description tag, however, is a little more useful. This tag search engines will actually use but maybe not in your rankings. Do a search for any phrase and on the search results page you will see three things. The first is the link for a particular result and at the bottom the web address to that page. In between these two is a short snippet of text. Search engines get this snippet from your meta description. If your meta description tag is empty it will take a portion of your content and use it but that might not be ideal.

Think of your meta description tag as the sales copy for that page. You have 160 characters to write what that page is about. Use the main keywords for that page in an informative way. Keywords in this description will be bolded by Google and bring more attention to your result. Remember that this is your opportunity to sell this page to potential visitors.

Do not use the same meta tags for every page in your site. Each page on your site is about something different so the meta tags for each page should be different as well.

Title Tags

These show up at the top of your browser and describe that page. They are also used in the search results as the link to that page. Keep it below 65 characters and use the main keywords as the search engines will bold them.

URL's

When you create a new page on your site think about its name. Instead of www.yoursite.com/index.php?=content1=14567 rename the page to be www.yoursite.com/home-buyers-guide.html. Many website today have a tools built into them that will allow you to rename your pages. Again use keywords in your URL since Google will bold them as well.

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