Thread: Website meta-tags?

Hi all...

Could some please just give me a short overview of all the factors that play a part in geting your website on the first page of a search engine?

Something like this would be good...
Example:
meta-tags - ?%
discription - ?%
naming pages - ?%
title - ?%
page content - ?%
external links - ?%
ect.....

It would be very helpful!!!

I also have another question... How do the meta-tags work? What is the point of the meta-tags?
And where should I put them? Can I put the same set of meta-tags on every page? Or do the mets-tags have to be different for every page?
How many phrases should the meta-tags contain... 500 - 1000 - 3000.
And last question... if - for example - i have these phrases:
1 - information on riding
2 - information about riding
3 - riding information
4 - information for riding

would I need them all? or could I just have one phrase that uses all the same words like:
eg - information on and about riding

Please help me,
Best Regards,
Chris

Originally Posted by c.mclean

Hi all...

Could some please just give me a short overview of all the factors that play a part in geting your website on the first page of a search engine?

Something like this would be good...
Example:
meta-tags - ?%
discription - ?%
naming pages - ?%
title - ?%
page content - ?%
external links - ?%
ect.....

It would be very helpful!!!

I also have another question... How do the meta-tags work? What is the point of the meta-tags?
And where should I put them? Can I put the same set of meta-tags on every page? Or do the mets-tags have to be different for every page?
How many phrases should the meta-tags contain... 500 - 1000 - 3000.
And last question... if - for example - i have these phrases:
1 - information on riding
2 - information about riding
3 - riding information
4 - information for riding

would I need them all? or could I just have one phrase that uses all the same words like:
eg - information on and about riding

Please help me,
Best Regards,
Chris

All different search engines will rank your page differently however most of them will weigh heavily on content, keywords and meta tags.

In answer to your second question

Metatags do not have to be any particular length however usually a good 8-10 word description will do the trick. Meta tags are there to tell the search engine what it is your page is offering for example: The meta tags for 'Template Monster' website use the following metatags

Code:

"Template Monster offers professional web templates, flash templates and other web design products available for immediate download.".

The meta tag should have at least 2 of your keywords, which for the above site "Templates" is one of those keywords, within them but the meta tags are not all that the search engines use to rank your site.

The search engines will look at your website title which for 'Template Monster is

Code:

<title>Web Templates, Flash Templates, Website Templates Design - Template Monster </title>

As you can see they have again included some of their keywords in the title therefore giving more relevence to your keywords

Your page content should also include your keywords but don't add too many as the search engines will see your site as spamming or a doorway site which is basically a site which is loaded with keywords and when the customer goes to it they are automatically redirected to another site. Also don't add too little as your page will be seen to have no relevence to the keywords and therefore ranked lower.

And your last question:

You don't need to add all phrases however they can help so it's entirely up to you.

HTH

Hi,

Thank you Mook25...

Could I ask how many 8-10 word phrases should I use... what is too much, and what is too little....

And the other question is: Do I need to add the Meta-Tags to each page on my site? If so, can the meta-tags all be the same?

Thank you again,
Christopher

Originally Posted by c.mclean

Hi,

Thank you Mook25...

Could I ask how many 8-10 word phrases should I use... what is too much, and what is too little....

And the other question is: Do I need to add the Meta-Tags to each page on my site? If so, can the meta-tags all be the same?

Thank you again,
Christopher

Metatags are made up of 3 sections, Title, Description and keywords.

Title is obviously where you put the title of your page
Description is where you would put the description to your site
Key words are the words you think people will use to find your site.

So as an example: Website about horse riding

Title: All You Need to know about Horse Riding

Description: We tell you how to start horse riding, where to buy your horse riding equipment from and where the best places are to learn horse riding

Keywords: Horse, Horse Riding, learn horse riding,Horse riding equipment, learning how to ride a horse

From what you have said i would say you are looking more at keywords than meta tags themselves. Use the below tools when creating your meta tags and keyword list and they will help you. Remember that getting to the top page of any search engine is a long journey which takes a lot of patience as it does not happen over night. It can sometimes take years!.

Metatag Analyzer - Check Your Metatags and the density of your keywords!

http://www.submitexpress.com/analyzer/

Vodahosts Own Keyword Digger - Find Good Keywords

http://www.keyworddigger.com/

In answer to your next question. No the meta tags and keywords do not need to be the same on each page. In fact this could halm you if the keywords or meta tags from your homepage are not relevent to your new page. You can keep them the same if your site is only going to be about one thing and not diverting off in all directions but it is a good idea to add them to every page so that each page will get indexed by the search engines.

HTH

would it be a good idea, if you had a private or password protected page, to NOT use any keywords or meta-tags to keep unwanted crawlers/spiders from indexing your page?

OR is there an easier way to prevent this?

The only thing I disagree with - is I don't believe the meta keyword tag is at all needed. I didn't fill that in on A Child's Palace until this month - because the major se's don't use them anymore.

If you have a private or password protected page, there is no reason to fill out any of that - and you really should use a robot.txt file to tell se's to ignore the pages also.

The title is vital - your description is important - what's on the page is important - and the anchor text of all links back to you are important.

I also think a description better be interesting - and almost always you should stay away from the word we, us, I - in your description or on your pages - except an about us page - or where you need to build your own credibility.

And your title should START with the keyword phrase you are optimizing that page for and NOT have any extraneous words.

Your text and descriptions have to SELL you to someone - and they don't want to hear about you. So, in the example Mook used:

Title: All You Need to know about Horse Riding (No one is searching for All you Need to Know)
Description: We tell you how to start horse riding, where to buy your horse riding equipment from and where the best places are to learn horse riding

I would change them to (after you research that people are using these phrases to search):

Title: Horse Riding Information

if you want to brand your website it would be: Horse Riding Information from Name Of Business

Description: Horse riding information including where to buy horse riding equipment and the best places to learn horse back riding provided by Name of Business.

Title, Description and copy are VITAL to getting your site moved up in the se's - and doing them right means you are righting the copy YOUR CUSTOMER's would want to see.

Remember also that if someone clicks to add you to favorites - it's your title that gets added - so it needs to tell them from the first word why they saved you. I promise if your title starts with "all you need to know" they may never look to remember it's about horses or horse information - but if it starts with "horse info" - now they know why they saved it to favorites.

And YOU NEVER want your title, description and keywords to be the same on ANY pages. The idea is that you have multiple pages to focus on different aspects.

Thank you all.

I really appreciate all your help...

Best Regards,
Chris

Originally Posted by Robert

would it be a good idea, if you had a private or password protected page, to NOT use any keywords or meta-tags to keep unwanted crawlers/spiders from indexing your page?

OR is there an easier way to prevent this?

One way you could do this is add a robots.txt file into the root of your website. This will tell the robots what they can and can't crawl.

Originally Posted by Mook25

One way you could do this is add a robots.txt file into the root of your website. This will tell the robots what they can and can't crawl.

I understand this, even though I haven't brushed up on the subject of how to make one of these files for this purpose.

However, I believe I failed to be more specific with my question. Allow me to elaborate:

Understanding the basic concept of how search engine spiders/crawlers scan the site/pages: The question I ask myself when thinking about possible NEW or UNKOWN spiders/crawlers that my "robot.txt" file doesn't stop them from scanning my page(s) is:

If there were no keywords or meta-tags or page titles for them to read, would this possibly cause them to not go through the page?

LOL, I am getting real bad with explaining myself lately.

In a nutshell, I wouldn't even want the spiders/crawlers to know to NOT scan such page by instructions referring to the page in "robots.tx" Concerning sensitive documents, there has to be a preferred method of ensuring protection and accesibility used by web designers/programmers around the web, I'd simply like to know. pheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew, breathe in, breathe out.

I hope this post doesn't sound to stubborn

Can anyone help unscramble my brain and tell me that the answer I'm looking for is: Don't put the page on the web