Meta Tags. Do They Help Your Website To Get Better Search Results?

March 29, 2006

The answer is “No”, but finishing this way I’ll the author of the most meaningless article ever written. So I keep writing.

I have a client that needed to get good rank in Google on “Business Hosting”, “Website Hosting, “Web Hosting” and “Hosting Provider”. Changing the Meta Tags for their web site and buiilding a good link portfolio helped me to get good results. The web host has achieved to get ranked on the first page in google on search results “Business Hosting” and have been ranked bbetween top 60 on “Website Hosting” and “Web Hosting”.

I failed to put them among Top 100 search results on “Hosting Provider” but we’ve been very close and they got rankem among frist 120 listings.

Of course this campaign has been a part of the ‘link trading era’ that ended when Google changed the algorith. Now everione shal be very patient if they need to get igh rank on any keywords and must not try to spam the search engines.

Many people involved to web business will tell you that Meta Tags are not so important and you can even miss them. It is true that you can fine well ranked web sites that do not use metas. At the same time I recomend you to use them. It is important to know that Meta Tags can affect your website rank on both “positive” and “negative” way. You will learn something about Meta tags creation below that would help you to avoid mistakes.

Be adviced that I’m not so called “SEO Guru” so I’ll target your attention to all the articles and web site I find useful on this matter.

The (TITLE)

You have to put your Metas before those two brackets - (HEAD) and (HEAD). “Head” marks this part of your web site that is placed on the top of your web page HTML code (unless if yo uuse any scripts and special coding).

The firs line of Meta tags is the “Title” - (TITLE)(/TITLE). You have 2 different ways to fill it. The first one is to describe your website, service area and to place important words related to your business there. The second one is to put your business name and to explain what surfers wil lfind on your web site. Let’s say you run your own web design studio, your brand’s name is WDS and you offer graphic design, html and flash animation. Title of you meta tags would be

(TITLE)Web Design, HTML, Graphic Design and Flash Animation(/TITLE)

(TITLE)WDC - Web Design Studio, HTML, Graphic Design, Flash(/TITLE)

You can create your title by using different style and combinations. It depends of what do you find important. I can suggest you only not to put the popular keywords in your title and to try to compete to ranked web sites. They are there not because they put “Web Design” in front of their Meta tag title but because they are popular web design resources - providers, media or other web sites related to the web design indusry.So nobody can make better decision than you. You know your business objectives and you know what you are going to do with your business. So place it between those brackets up there.

Are the Meta Tag Important for Google, Yahoo, MSN and othe Search Engines?

Yes! I know that many people who understand the website optimization better than I do would say they are not. Google says it doesn’t count Meta Tags when its algorithm creates search results. But at the same time Meta Tags are still very imporatn for Google. I’ve managed some websites and campaigns that have been ranked on the first pages because meta tags, domain name and the site content have been recognized as useful from Google… They are useful but I can make a bet those sites would never get their rankings if the Meta Tags were wrong. So it is important what your metas say. Even if the Search Engines don’t care, people who search do.

Content and Keywords

My suggestion for “Content” tag is to put text that best describes your business and services. Don’t say your company or web site are “the best”. Just explain your business and service. If we talk about “our design studio” mentioned above it would be

(META name=”description” content=”WDC - Web Desgin, HTML and Flash Animation. Take a our portfolio and contact us if you need a stylish website.”)

The “Keywords” tag generally includes all the words that are realted to your business, services, location and etc.

(META name=”keywords” content=”web design,design,html,flash,new york,small business”)

You can include a number of keywords that describe your business.

These 3 meta Tag lines are enough. Since this is a blog but not a SE service website or SE Tutorial, I’m not gonna write more on SE optimization. Here ar some sites where you can find useful information.

http://www.philb.com/metatag.htm,

http://searchenginewatch.com/examples/article.php/2168041,

http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2165061,

http://www.webmarketingnow.com/tips/meta-tags-uncovered.html#google

Written by D.Avramov · Filed Under About Web Hosting