Infinite Path

Regarded by some as the be all and end all of SEO, meta tags are just one component of a successful online marketing campaign. Most of the time, when people mention meta tags, they are talking about meta description or meta keyword tags, or both. The importance of optimizing your meta tags is debatable (mainly because search engines are aware of how open to manipulation they can be so do not place too much emphasis upon them) but it certainly isn’t worth ignoring them. Having said this, don’t waste too much of your time dwelling over the exact wording of your meta description tag. With regards to your meta keywords tags, pick a couple of keywords which apply to each page. Spend a few minutes doing this before moving on to the description tag.

The reason why the keyword tag should not take long is that it should come as second nature to you. You should know what each of your pages is discussing and should be able to think of relevant variations quickly. This tag is the place to think about popular misspellings of your company name, product, or service. Include a few likely misspellings on each page. If there are any words that sound almost exactly like one of your keywords, think about including them as well. With regards to rankings, doing this is not likely to impact upon search engine rankings in isolation, so make sure you also pay close attention to the words you include in your on-page content.

Some search engines use the content provided in your meta description tag to show a brief description of your site under the title of your website when search results are displayed. This is not always the case and it is common for the search engines to extract a useful excerpt from the actual content on your page instead. However, it is worth spending some time thinking about this tag just in case. Unlike your keyword tag, this tag should not read as if it has been written by a robot for the search engines. It should appeal to real human visitors and should be interesting yet accurate enough to encourage them to click on the link to your site. You should include one or several of your keywords in this tag but not to the extent that it appears unnatural.

Remember that paying close attention to your meta tags will only be worthwhile if you work extremely hard on the other areas of SEO, including link campaigns and content creation. If you neglect these aspects in favour of meta tag optimization, you will be doing yourself no favours at all.