Optimizing Web Sites Built by the Web Site Design Services Team
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Last Updated:
November 11, 2008 1:58 PM
When completing your Content Worksheet for your Build It For Me or Custom Build It For Me Web site, you can choose to provide meta tags to your site specialist.
Meta tags are HTML tags that contain Web page information, including title, keywords, description, robot commands, and page-refreshing intervals. The Meta tag content is an important element in search engine optimization, as many search engines incorporate some meta data into their ranking procedures. Meta tags are invisible to the end user and do not affect how a page is displayed.
If you do not add this information during your initial build, you can always add it later using your Monthly Site Updates.
Guidelines for Composing Meta Tags
- Title Tags
- Your title tag is one of the most important on-page factors for ranking. Your title tag should describe your page contents with a focus on the main keyword for the page. For example a teak furniture company that has a page about teak tables would want to create a title tag like: Teak Tables Always at the Lowest Prices. Title tags should:
- Be the most important keyword of the page first.
- Act as a short description after the main keyword.
- Avoid using stop words: I, a, about, an, are, as, at, be, by, com, de, en, for, from, how, in, is, it, la, of, on, or, that, the, this, to, was, what, when, where, who, will, with, www.
- Avoid non-alphanumeric characters: ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + < > ? " : [ ] - = ' ; , . /
- Not contain more than 70 characters, including spaces.
- Description Tags
- A description tag is displayed under your title tag when your result comes up in a search engine. A description tag contains information about your page including details, special offers, or a sales message. For example from the teak furniture site: Relax and kick your feet up on your new over-sized teak wood coffee table. Durability and beauty describe this table as well as an everyday low price. Description tags should:
- Accurately describe the service or value of the page to a visitor.
- Not exceed 115 characters.
- Keyword Tags
- The keyword tag contains all of your keywords for the page you are creating. Your keyword tag should only contain keywords that appear in the title or content of the page. A typical page will focus on 3-6 keywords that are closely related. For example, you might include the following keywords: Teak Table, Teak Coffee Table, Teak Extended Table, Round Teak Table. Keywords tags should:
- Contain a list of words and phrases that you think people will use when searching for your site.
- Separate each phrase with a comma.
- Not include too many phrases. Three per page is optimal.
- Optionally, include the locality in your key phrases, for example: Scottsdale teak furniture, Scottsdale teak wood.
- Be used in the text on the page.