What Are Website Meta Tags?
There are two elements that must be placed as tags in the <head> section of a HTML document. These elements are:
Title tag & Meta description
We’ve already discussed title tags in a separate post, and now you’ve mastered that skill, let’s move straight into meta descriptions.
Meta descriptions are also called Meta Report Tags and have a similar function in the SERPs to title tags (although search engines don’t place a high value on meta descriptions). As with title tags, you should use these to your best advantage. Place keywords and search terms in your meta description tags that are relevant to the page they describe. If you can’t use your keywords in the body copy, at least include them in the meta description. The description should make sense and entice site visitors to click.
The layout of meta description tags is important in order to properly contextualise the content of the page. Make sure that the first instance of the description text is above the fold and can be read by a visiting search engine. This is because the first visible text will be given more weight as a description of the page than if it occurs somewhere else on the page.
To properly contextualise a page title, the first instance of the text should be in a heading tag close to the top of the page. This leaves the reader with a sense that they are in the right place as opposed to being dropped into random paragraphs of text. The meta description tag can be as long as you like, but ideally should only be 6 or so words.
It is common optimisation practice to use dynamic content to build URLs with keywords and thus increase URLs which have authority. However, if you have a static site with few URLs, it is unlikely that you will have a lot of dynamically generated content. You can experiment with generating your dynamic URLs with site middle scripts, but I wouldn’t go beyond the stage of generating your base URL and base landing page for each different keyword.
A complete SEO campaign could be based around a series of independent optimisation techniques; however your approach should begin with solid keyword research first. Keyword research should brand your campaign and generate a small number of relevant keywords for your campaign to compete for page 1. This research should identify keywords with little competition, however providing you with with a realistic opportunity to compete for page 1 of a popular search term.
Keyword research should be the first step of any SEO campaign and offers the opportunity to compete for page 1 of a popular search term.
- Method One Keyword Research
- Method Two Finding Long Tail Keywords
- Method Three Finding Low Competition Keywords
- Method Four Finding Submission Links
Indexed Pages
I’ll be honest, the first few methods I teach under this umbrella isn’t exactly how I’m going about achieving top search results. However, the important thing to understand is that Google will rank a website for one of two possible algorithms:
This algorithm is used is largely dependent on the number of high quality backlinks a website has. The higher the website ranks in Google for a high quality keyword, and the more backlinks it has, the higher the keyword will rank in Google’s SERPs.
Keyword Research
Keyword Research is the process of determining a list of keywords that will be most effective for an optimisation campaign. Keyword research is a vitally important aspect of SEO, as the best keywords are often very competitive and searched for by a lot of people. However, a good keyword research tool can save you lots of time and effort when doing the research.
The two main advantages of using keyword research tools are:
1) They provide a detailed analysis of the number of searches for a given keyword.
2) They will also give you a fair idea of the level of competition.
Once you have decided on the right keywords for a campaign, the next step is to perform search engine optimisation. What this means is that you will have to optimise your website with the chosen keywords. Before you do this, there are a few things that should be considered.
Search Engine Optimisation
Search engine optimisation is a complicated process. There are many different tactics you can apply to get your website to the number one position for your chosen keywords. For example, the more links you have pointing to your website, the higher rank you can achieve.
Some factors that are important are:
For example, if you have a site that sells furniture, your website should have links to online stores that sell furniture, as well as links to car dealerships that sell furniture. The more links you have, the more Google will think you are, well, a furniture store. This will improve your Google ranking.
Articles
A great way of building inbound links is to write articles and post them to article directories. Once you post the article, you can place a link to your website in the footer or a resource box. Be sure to post up to as many article directories as possible.
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