Rules for META Tags on Your Website
One of the most important elements of onsite SEO is the usage of the META title tag. While including keywords in your site’s content and in a META keywords tag usually gains the most attention, the META title tag is certainly not something to be overlooked. Additionally, considering recent developments in the world of SEO it has actually grown in importance. Once you learn how to make use of the proper META tags then you will be able to give yourself an easy boost in the search engines.
A major change has taken place over the last few months. Or more realistically, a major change has been announced but has actually been in effect for quite some time. That announcement was that major search engines Google and Yahoo! both do not use the META keywords tag to help rank a website. Many people have assumed this was a classic ranking mechanism, however the truth is that it’s not viewed at all any longer.
That doesn’t mean you should stop all of your work with META tags however. As mentioned, the META title tag is still very important for SEO. Your META title tag is what gets displayed at the top of a page, in the browser bar window and is also what gets displayed when your site is shown in the search engine results.
Therefore you should try to incorporate one or two of your keywords into your META title tag so you can improve your rankings for them. However, while you do this you have to keep the overall character length of your title limited. A good rule of thumb is to keep your title under 65 or 60 characters in length. Anything more and it will get cut off. So do your best to incorporate a few of your keywords while keeping the length down to ensure they get included and displayed.
The META description tag is also still very important for SEO. The description tag is what will be displayed under your title when your page is viewed in the results of the search engines. This is another spot that you can include some keywords and phrases. The length for the description should be approximately 150-160 characters or less.
As you can see, with both the META title and description tags the length of your included text is very important. Keeping them short and sweet will go a long way towards helping your SEO. Also, as mentioned, be sure to avoid keyword stuffing and instead focus on including just a few of your most important keywords on any particular page.
A few years ago many people relied heavily on the use of the META keywords tag. It’s official now though that it is no longer of value. So switch your focus to the META title and META description tags for SEO. You can still include your most important keywords and you’ll go a long way towards improving your ranking and the results you see with SEO.
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