Getting The Most Out Of Meta-Tags

What are meta-tags?

Keywords meta-tag

Title meta-tag

The title meta-tag is the most important of the meta-tags. Use this meta-tag to give your page a title. As with any writing, the title of a piece should describe the content, while also capturing the attention of the reader. In addition, you should ensure that your title meta-tag is keyword rich.

The value of the title meta-tag is displayed in your browser at the top of the window, as shown below. This is the only meta-tag that is actually displayed to your visitors, and for this reason needs to be readable by humans.

In addition, the title meta-tag is usually used by search engines as the title of your page to display in their listings, as shown below:

It is extremely important to make sure that your title will attract visitors to your site, and tell them what the page is about. A title like, "index", will never attract anyone to your site.

Search engines also take the title meta-tag into account when ranking your site. Smaller, regional search engines, like Ananzi in South Africa, put a lot of weight on the title meta-tag, and you can often rank in the top five for a keyword just by using it in your title.

More advanced search engines, like Google, also take the title meta-tag into account, but they do it in a more complicated manner, and it is just one of many factors that affect your rankings. You shouldn't think that because of this, the title meta-tag is not important, though; it is one of the few factors that you have complete control over, and in the highly competitive market of search engine optimisation, you should take every advantage you can.

Search engines like Google will give you slightly higher rankings if the title of your page accurately describes your page. In other words, if the keywords used in your title actually occur as major keywords in the content of your page. If, on the other hand, Google determines that the keywords in your title bear no resemblance to the content of your page, you will be penalised for attempting to spam.

What are meta-tags?

Keywords meta-tag