Adding Meta Tags to Your Website
A meta tag is an HTML tag containing information for search engines about a specific website. Meta tags contain keywords or phrases alerting search engines of a website's content to be included in search results for users requesting related information.
Meta tags should be placed in the <head> portion of each Web page you want indexed by the search engines. You should consider placing meta content for the following tags:
- Title Tag — The title meta tag is the most important element in the site optimization process. Many search engines pay particular attention to keywords that occur in the title tag. As well, search engines generally display the title tag's contents in their site listings.
- Description Tag — The description meta tag defines site information a search engine displays when it lists the site. The description meta tag should concisely explain the nature and contents of the page.
- Keywords Tag — The keywords meta tag lists the search keywords for a site. The keywords entered here should reflect any words or phrases Internet users might use to search for the site. Although many search engines have ceased to incorporate this tag into their ranking procedures, it's still a good idea to add this tag before submitting a page.
The method of inserting meta content in to your website varies depending on what program or application you used to build the site. Use this method if you have access to the HTML pages of your site:
To Add Meta Tags to Your Website
- Open a text editing program, such as Notepad.
- Log in to the Web hosting account provided to you by your hosting provider.
- In the text editor, open the Web page you want to add the meta tags to.
- In the
<head>portion of the file, insert the meta content. Here is an example of proper meta tag placement for a real estate website:<html> <head>
<title>Premier East Valley Realty - Homes for Sale</title>
<meta name="description" content="Premier East Valley Realty
specializing in luxury real estate. We are your location
specialists.">
<meta name="keywords" content="Real Estate,Agent,Realtor,Buy,
Home,Sell,Homes,Sale,Broker,Commercial,invest,investing,
investor">
</head> - Save the file.
- Upload the Web page to the server.
NOTE: Visit your website to verify the meta content uploaded correctly. Navigate to the page you updated, right-click on the page, and then select View Page Source in Firefox®, or View Page in Internet Explorer®. If placed properly, the meta content displays in the <head> portion of the code.
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