Tags, Tags, Tags
September 19th, 2008 by Dan
There are many different tags used on a web page from the formatting HTML
tags included within the design elements to the Meta tags that are used to
purvey particular information about that site and to help browsers and spiders
deal properly with the page as it is presented. Each of them has a purpose
and while they may not all be required on every page of your site there are
certain tags that you should always include where possible. Not only can these
tags help with search engine optimisation but they can also ensure you retain
high levels of accessibility and usability for all.
Meta Tags
Meta tags are standards compliant pieces of HTML code that can be included
on any page of content. They are not related to the formatting of your page
and are essentially there for the sole use of the search engines. Gone are
the days of pure Meta search engines that based their entire indices on these
tiny snippets of information, but most search engines still retain a degree
of use for them. The search results you view in most major engines are built
up using the information provided in Meta tags. As such, Meta tag optimisation
is a part of general search engine optimisation.
The Most Relevant Meta Tags For Search Engine Optimisation
There are actually a huge number of different Meta tags but the ones that
are most relevant to search engine optimisation are the keywords, description,
and the robots tags. The keywords and description tags enable you to convey
a great deal of information about what a page contains although most search
engines only really use the keywords tag to identify potential spammers so
be warned not to use irrelevant or repetitive lists of keywords.
Other Meta Tags
The robots tag is used to gain some degree of control over the bots that are
used by search engines to access your site. It can prevent a robot from viewing
the content of a particular page altogether if required. Other possible Meta
tags include the author and copyright tag but these aren’t essential to search
engine optimisation.
Title Tags
Title tags are sometimes grouped with Meta tags. This is because they usually
feature together in the code for a web page. The title tag, however, does have
relevance to the design as well as the search engine optimisation of your pages.
The title is displayed in the horizontal bar at the very top of the window
and it is still believed that the inclusion of a page’s primary keyword within
this tag can help search engine optimisation efforts although the effect is
likely to be minimal.
Other Tags
There are other tags beloved to offer advantage to search engine optimisation.
Formatting tags such as h1 and h2 tags as well as alternative text tags for
images and other content elements should be considered an essential part of
design and development. They improve accessibility and usability as well as
offer benefit in search engine optimisation. No tag is going to provide a magic
solution to your search engine optimisation campaign but they all have a place
and a genuine use.
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The HTML title tag isn’t really a Meta tag, but it’s worth discussing in relation to them. Whatever text you place in, the text will appear in the reverse bar of someone’s browser when they view the web page. Meta tags go in between the opening and closing Head Tags.
The Meta keywords tag allows you to provide additional text for crawler-based search engines to index along with your body copy. The Meta keywords tag is sometimes useful as a way to reinforce the terms you think a page is important for on the few crawlers that supports it.
One other Meta tag worth mentioning is the robots tag. This lets you specify that a particular page should not be indexed by a search engine. To keep spiders out, simply add this text between your head tags on each page that you don’t want to get indexed. Most of the major search engines support the Meta robots tag.
Meta tags are the part of HTML coding added into web pages that are utilized by major search engines. The standard Meta tags are the keyword Meta tag, the description Meta tag, and the title tag. Keywords tags help search engines to categorize your site, and allow people to find speedily your page.
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