Article 10: Meta Tags
by Bernie Howe Copyright � 2005
by Bernard Howe. All rights reserved.
Meta
tags will not alter how your web page will view, but meta
tags will help search facilities index your site, and what
each page has within it. Just as the title tags tells us
what the title of our page is, the meta tag tells what our
page is about and some of the key words that will be found
on this page. There are many different types of meta tags
besides the keyword and description tags, for instance there
is author, page update, robots, language, etc.
Many
people just make a template and use the keywords and site
description for the index (main) page, and every page made
after that uses the exact same key words and description.
This is wrong. It stops many of your pages from being
indexed in the right category.
An example:
Let's say
your site is about dogs. Your keywords and description
are
about your dog. Then, on a page about veterinarians, you use
the same keywords--words that are not used on this page at all.
This will cut your chances of having this page listed in the
proper
category.
One way to increase your
presence in the search engines is with keywords. And
one way to add keywords to your site is to do it page by
page. Some keywords will be the same on page after page,
but others will be page-specific.
There is
a web site to help you with this task. It will give you a
good idea of
how meta tags should be. This site is called
Meta Tag Analyzer.
This is not the only one out there, but it is a good one I
came across. There is also a keyword analyzer there; that is
a big help in knowing how many searches there are for
certain words.
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About
The Author
Bernie
Howe made his first
Web page in 1998, and has been involved with accessibility
and Web standards since then. He is owner/designer of
Keepsake Awards.
Professionally, Bernie has been in the construction trade
since 1969, and is a project engineer/CAD manager for a
construction firm that does maintenance for the high-tech
industry.
Bernie has
been married since 1966, and has 2 children and 3
grandchildren. He is also a cancer survivor, (he was
diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999). He lives in the Sonoran
Desert of Arizona.
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