Perfect Meta Tags Tutorial

Perfect Meta Tags Tutorial – How to write your own perfect Meta Tags

Perfect Meta Tags - Infinitee Web Design Company

Perfect Meta Tags Tutorial – What you need to know about writing Meta Tags – The trick is in proper preparation, research and wording of your meta tags. Meta tags are behind the scenes (placed within the HTML code between the <head> </head> tags) scripted instructions that suggest to the search engines how to list your pages and what the page’s general contents is within that particular page. There are also meta tags to state copyright, date of creation, dates that the content becomes valid and ends. (like special event announcements) .

Other meta tags declare the type of document that is being presented while others request that the search engines catalog all the content on the page and follow all links on the page for indexing as well. There are many more tags but, these are the most important. Keep in mind that you need to create unique meta tags for each page that want cataloged by the search engines. Repeated & duplicate meta tags on multiple pages will be ignored and could do more harm than good.

If you are using Drupal, WordPress or some other CMS (Content Management System) then you will want to use a module or plugin that will help you add your meta tags on each page as you create them. For Drupal 7, 8 and 9 it is the Meta Tags module or the highly recommended Yoast – Real-time SEO for Drupal module and for Drupal 6 this module is the Nodewords module. Yoast SEO for WordPress is by far the best!

Note: If you are still running your site on the now unsupported Drupal 6, you are running the risk of security loop holes and it is highly recommended to upgrade to Drupal 8!

Even if you use a module to help you create your meta tags, this tutorial can help you to understand the best practices for working with them. There are specific limitations and if you abide by the rules you will have a much better chance of being successful in achieving a good page rank and higher placement.

 

Meta Tags In Nutshell:

  • Title: 60-65 characters including spaces and punctuation. No more, no less!
  • Description: 130-140 characters including spaces and punctuation. No more, no less!
  • Keywords: Optional and not necessary any more… Don’t waist your time with them!

For Yoast SEO users:

Basically, copy your page title and use 3-4 words of it for your focus keyphrase, title, Meta description and first sentence of the page/post.

My front page Yoast SEO inputs:

Focus keyphrase:
Delaware Graphic Art

SEO title
Delaware Graphic Art Web Design Company – Artist Ralph Hawke Manis

Meta description
Delaware Graphic Art and Web Design Company with 25+ years experience. Rehoboth Beach graphic art and web design company experts in graphics.

Tip: Click on the SEO analysis for helpful suggestions on how to better your SEO inputs.

 

Perfect Meta Tags Tutorial Descriptions of the most basic and important Meta Tags:

 

The “Title” Meta Tag – Needs to be no more than 58 characters including spaces and punctuation. In the title you want to put as many “keywords” that apply to the page’s content while still making sense with what you are saying. This is the text that displays on top of the browser window and has a large impact on how the search engines catalog the page.

 

Title Meta Tag Example:

<title>Search engine optimization submissions SEO and Meta Tags</title>

 

The “Description” Meta Tag – This tag should be no more than 140 characters and should be a logical statement that includes an assortment of “keywords” that pertain to the page’s content. These keywords should also be may of the same ones used in the above “Title” tag.

 

Description Meta Tag Example:

meta name=”description” content=”Search Engine optimization SEO submissions placement and meta tags ranking How to write perfect Meta Tags tutorial”>

 

The “Keywords” Meta Tag – (This meta tag is not supported by most search engines.) Keywords and key phrases can be up to 1000 characters total separated with comas. Keywords and Key phrase are an very integral part of the scenario. Keywords are, like the word implies, key to the overall content of the page The first 15 or so keywords should be the most relevant to the page (not the entire site). Key phrases are groups of words that are pertinent to the content as well. Writing your keywords as plural will bring search results that work with both singular and plural search queries.

 

Keywords Meta Tag Example:

meta name=”keywords” content=”Search Engines, optimization, submissions, placement, rankings, SEO, Search engine optimization, meta tags, How to write, perfect Meta Tags, Meta Tags tutorials, Infinitee, Delaware Web designers, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Delmarva, Web, sites, pages, designers, building, prices, specializing, experts, navigation, Websites, Websites, Webmasters, Internet, graphics, portfolios, e-commerce, hosting, domain names, solutions, Meta Tags, credit cards, small, medium, sizes, businesses, Java Script, DHTML, HTML, search, engines, optimization, submissions, help, tutorials, tips, tricks, tools”>

 

Note: Google does not take into consideration the “keywords” meta tag any more and has not for years but, some other search engines do. Still, it is not worth the time to bother with them.

 

The importance of the textual content of your pages:

A key aspect of how these meta tags are utilized by the search engines is how they relate to the text content of your particular individual web pages. You must have your main keywords within your web pages text as well as your title, description and listed in your keywords for the search engines to catalog your page with these four standard elements.

 

Example: If your website is about selling 3D widgets then you should have 3D widgets mentioned in your title, in your description, in your keywords and within the body of text on the page for it to be effective. Also, while contemplating the textual content of your web page and meta tags, try considering what your target visitors might submit as a search query to find your website’s or products and list those search terms and phrases in these four standard elements.

 

Quality linking and Google page rank: (How high your site is listed in the search engines, listing 1-40 or worse, not at all?)

One major aspect of Google page ranking is derived from how many and how high the page rank of other sites are that link directly to your sites pages. Sites that have similar content to yours and have a good page rank tells the search engines that these quality, ranked sites respect and admire your website enough to add a link to your site so, your site must be good enough for a decent ranking as well.

This is why it is more important to try to exchange links with quality sites with similar content. Quantity is important too but, it is better to have ten well ranked sites linking to yours than have a thousand incoming links from sites that don’t have any Google rank at all!

 

Submitting to the top Search Engines:

The search engines will pick up on your revisions in a short while. Of course, after creating your meta tags and applying them to every page of your website, you can submit or resubmit your site to all the major search engines and or submit your XML site map as well.

 

We hope that this little tutorial about meta tags and search engines has been helpful in preparing your website’s textual content while during it’s preparation. We will of course help perfect the meta tags and apply a few other important ones for your site. Please take this information into consideration while writing your copy and keep a list of your keywords for us before sending your website material.