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Search Engine Optimization: Making the Most of META Tags

By Theresa Wilkinson, W-edge design
Reprinted with permission from the STC Intercom magazine - July/August 2002 Volume 49, Issue 7.

This article is the second of several on search engine optimization, a business marketing strategy that manipulates Internet search engines. To read the first installment, "Search Engine Optimization: Keywords That Work," see the April 2002 issue of Intercom.

Selecting keywords is the single most important part of your search engine optimization (SEO) program. If you do not select the keywords your customers will be using in their searches, all your SEO efforts will be in vain. So choose those keywords with care! Once you have carefully selected those keywords, you may think, "Now what do I do with them?" You can organize and place your keywords to affect your site's ranking. One of the most important places for them is in the META tags.

META tags are the HTML tags you place in your Web site's HEAD statement, which does not display in the browser window. They allow you to communicate certain information about your site to search engines and other automated services, as well as to other Web developers. Search engines mine your META tags for keywords and return the results to the person performing the search. Among other content, your META tags may include TITLE tags, your site description ("META description") tags, and your keywords. You can include other tags, but these are the most important for SEO.

Harness the Power of Keywords

Before I explain TITLE tags and META descriptions, you should know a few things about keywords and other factors that affect your site's rankings by a search engine. Search engines rank your site on how many search queries use the keywords you choose. But there's more to SEO than just listing your keywords in your META keyword tags. How well you organize the keywords in your code and on your Web site can help your site's ranking.

Generally a search engine "points" to Web sites based on some predefined criteria. While ranking criteria vary among search engines, most grade the placement of keywords and phrases based on these factors:

Keyword prominence. How soon the keywords appear in your code. The earlier, the better. The very first HTML element in a page that can contain keywords is the site's TITLE tag.
Keyword frequency. How often the keyword or keyword phrase appears on the page.
Keyword weight. The number of keywords compared with the total number of words on that Web page.
Keyword proximity. The placement of keywords in relation to one another.
Keyword placement. Where and in which code you place your keywords and phrases.
Off-the-page criteria. This includes link popularity (the number of sites that are linked to your site) and HTML construction.

All of this can be confusing, so I've developed some tips:

• Place your keywords early in your TITLE tags and META description tags, and place these tags early in your HEAD statement.
• Use keywords in your copy headers, and use them early.
• Place keywords early in the page copy (first twenty-five words).
• Place keywords early in the second or third paragraphs of the page copy.
• Present keyword-rich body copy early in the HTML organization of the page.
• For each page on your site, try for a keyword weight between 3 and 10 percent. I get good rankings with 10 percent or a little more.
• Include keywords in your hyperlink copy, as names of your image <ALT> tags, and in the text at the end of your page.

The TITLE Tag: Most Important

The TITLE tag is by far the most important tag for effective SEO. This tag displays the site's name, which will appear at the top of the browser. All major spider-driven search engines use keywords in the site's TITLE tags in their calculations. What is the most common phrase found in the TITLE tags? "Welcome to MyCompany.com!" Think of the wasted space in this title! Instead, place your most important keywords ahead of your company name, like this:

<TITLE>Keyword1, keyword2, keyword3 at mycompany.com</TITLE>

Between the TITLE tags, identify your site in a way that is interesting to the user, including as many of your keywords as possible. Always put your TITLE tags right after the opening HEAD tag. Remember that most search engines will return your title in their search results exactly as you composed it.

Keep in mind that while it's important to craft a title that will appeal to search engines, you also want it to appeal to the users in your target audience. Try to strike a balance. If you can create a keyword-studded title that achieves top rankings in the search engines and entices visitors to your site, you will get more traffic than a higher-ranking site that isn't attractive to users.

What Makes an Effective Title?

An effective title accomplishes the following:

• Appeals or captivates
• Exhibits professionalism
• Uses your keywords early
• Is easy to read and understand
• Anticipates and responds to a user need
• Makes the reader want to know more

Dos and Don'ts for TITLE Content

The following tips will help you create a dynamite title that sells your company to potential customers. Your title should give them enough information to entice them to visit your site. By increasing traffic, you may knock out any competition that may be above you in the rankings.

Do write a title that captivates your target user. We all aspire to getting a number one ranking for our site. But if your title is dull, you won't get the traffic this top ranking should deliver. Compelling words like breakthrough, announcing, secrets, dazzling, incredible, overwhelming, imagine, success, impressive, and so on make great lures.

Do write a professional title. Before customers will purchase any of your goods or services, they must feel comfortable with your business. Your Web site must present a consistent message that your business is professional and trustworthy.

Don't write a title that simply lists keyword after keyword. This is not professional.

Do place your keywords early in your TITLE tags. The more prominent your keywords or keyword phrase, the better your chance at a higher ranking.

Don't format your title in all capital letters. Not only are capital letters hard to read on computer screens, but on the Internet, all caps may be considered aggressive and annoying. This will not help your rankings.

Examples

When I designed Guerrilla Recruitment Strategies' Web site, I created a title with a twist: "Guerrilla Recruitment Strategies is a talent brokerage/executive recruiter specializing in accounting, computer programming, mechanical engineering, WebSphere, WebLogic, marketing, logistics, project management, electrical engineering, civil engineering, and transportation jobs."

For this one, my client specifically wanted her company name recognized, so I placed it first to give it extra "weight" with the search engines.

The title for my site, W-edge Design, reads, "Search engines--ever wonder about search engine rankings, search engine placement, internet marketing, or seo? W-edge design specializes in affordable search engines placement, internet marketing and seo as well as Web site design." (Through my SEO research, I have found that most people search terms in all lowercase letters, so I format most terms in lower case, as in "internet" and "seo.")

The META Description Tags

The description tags can make or break a site's popularity. Quite simply, effective description tags can compensate for a slightly lower ranking if the Web sites with better keyword matches have unimpressive tags. After search results are returned with site descriptions, people will scan past an inappropriate description to find something that's a better fit for their needs.

Just like a title, a good description should anticipate and respond to a user need, entice the reader to explore your site, and be easy to understand.

Some search engines have word limits for the description, so keep it between 150 and 200 characters. If your description is longer than the engine's limit, it will be cut off mid-sentence or mid-word.

Dos and Don'ts for Effective META Descriptions

• Create a captivating META description using compelling words that intrigue the reader.
• Place important keywords and phrases early in your description tag.
• Use each keyword or phrase no more than three times in your description tag. In many cases, once is best.
• Don't use all capital letters.
• Don't simply list your keywords and keyword phrases.

I have had a lot of success with simply expanding my TITLE text with a few more sentences containing keywords. You can also use different descriptions for each page on your site to highlight different keywords--I do this for each article posted on my site.

Examples

Here is the META description text for the Guerrilla Recruitment Strategies Web site: "Guerrilla Recruitment Strategies is a talent brokerage/executive recruiter specializing in accounting, computer programming, mechanical engineering, WebSphere, WebLogic, marketing, logistics, project management, electrical engineering, civil engineering, and transportation jobs. We are more than just headhunters or a job search site--We help our corporate partners find the talented executives, managers, technical and professional employees they need for their companies. Our fees are always paid by the company."

Here is the site text for W-edge design: "Search engines--ever wonder about search engine rankings, search engine placement, internet marketing, or seo? W-edge design specializes in affordable search engines placement, internet marketing and seo as well as Web site design. We offer the best in visual communications and Web site development."

Putting It All Together

The TITLE and META description tags can give you some control over how your site is listed in spider-based search engines. If you don't include them, the spider will likely use the first twenty-five words on your Web site as the name and description. To help you see how it all fits together, the following example illustrates one way to include TITLE and description tags in complete META tags:

<HEAD>
<TITLE>Search engines--ever wonder about search engine rankings, search engine placement, internet marketing, or seo? W-edge design specializes in affordable search engine placement, internet marketing, and seo, as well as Web site design.</TITLE>
<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Search engines--ever wonder about search engine rankings, search engine placement, internet marketing, or seo? W-edge design specializes in affordable search engine placement, internet marketing, and seo, as well as Web site design. We offer the best in visual communications and Web site development.">
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="search engines, search engine ranking, search engine submission, search engine placement, search engine registration, submission, placement, registration, search, engines, internet marketing seo, freelance writing jobs, how to design a Web page, tag metatag description keywords position engine, affordable search engine ranking, Web page design tips, Web design prices, good Web design, internet keywords, meta keywords, w-edge design, W-edge design"> </HEAD>

After working so hard to come up with your site's keywords and phrases, you need to make all that work pay off by creating great site titles and descriptions that will pull in your target audience. (No one said SEO would be easy!) When a user searches on a keyword, the search engine returns pages and pages of Web site descriptions. You need to make your site stand out with your text. In my next article, I'll cover site design considerations that can affect your SEO program.

References

Bruemmer, Paul J. “Understanding the Power of Search Engine Marketing”. ClickZ. October 24, 2001.

Bruemmer, Paul J. “SEO and the Web Site Design Process”. ClickZ. December 19, 2001.

Farrell, Tom. “Search Engine Optimisation”. User News. October 8, 2001.

Marckini, Fredrick. Search Engine Positioning. Plano, TX: Wordware Publishing, 2001.

Nobles, Robin. “Top Mistakes When Optimizing Web Pages.” WebProNews. January 7, 2002. www.Webpronews.com.

O’Neill, Susan, and Robin Nobles. Streetwise Maximize Web Site Traffic: Build Web Site Traffic Fast and Free by Optimizing Search Engine Placement. Holbrook, MA: Adams Media Corp., 2000.

Whalen, Jill. “Paying for Placement”. Rank Write Roundtable.

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