SEO 101: Meta Keywords and Descriptions
We have already discussed the importance of titles which is defined in the head of a web page along with the page description and keywords. These are the meta description and the meta keywords.
The meta description as the name suggests should describe the contents of your web page and is another opportunity to include target keywords and synonyms. In the same way that you vary your titles across your site you should also vary the descriptions. If you do this, your rankings will improve.
The meta keywords are not used by the majority of search engines any longer. I have seen a lot of people giving incorrect information about this, so to back up what I am saying have a look at this post on the Google Webmaster’s blog.
“we generally ignore the contents of the “keywords” meta tag. As with other possible meta tags”
If you are using a content management system to create your website there will be a setting for modifying theses meta tags across the site and will hopefully let you define these for each page.
Another important thing to remember is that it is the meta description that is usually returned by Google in the search results along with the page title. And guess what, if your titles and descriptions are relevant to the search terms you will get more clicks. Some claim that Google monitors the click through rates in the natural search results and use this data as part of their search engine ranking algorithm. Although I have no direct evidence for this it is clear that Google uses this technology in the Adsense PPC (Pay-Per-Click) programme and they use tracking URLs in the natural search results.
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Comment by SEO_Expert on 8 March 2008:
Hi there!!
Nice article and covers the basic information which is more relevant for all the webmasters who are new and in there learning stage.
Pingback by SEO 102: Evaluating Web Directories | The Hip Zone on 13 March 2008:
[...] with 200 to 300 words of content, some sites allow you to create several pages. • configurable Meta Description and Title for your page(s). • the ability to use html in your entry to create links to your site with [...]
Comment by seocontest2008 on 19 March 2008:
Excellent article, I agree meta descriptions are very important as it is this data that is used to display the description with search results that have been generated. It has now got to the stage that meta keywords are no longer used to weigh a website for rankings but with that in mind it still does not hurt to put them in there.
Comment by Tony on 19 March 2008:
I still use meta keywords sometimes - force of habit I suppose.
Comment by Geoff Cummings on 1 April 2008:
Nice article. Since I will never really be able to know which search engines will be visiting my sites I always spend some time on my tags, even the keywords one, which is probably the least effective one nowadays.
Comment by Abhishek on 1 April 2008:
Well said, Tony!
I also use met keywords! Google is not the only search engine out there! Yahoo & MSN still do give the meta keywords some value in ranking websites and it is important that we target them as well!