TITLE TAGS

Your title can be used to attract visitors. It should be appealing, as it will be appear above your website's description in the search listings.

If you searched on the words weight loss and the following three descriptions came up in the search results, which website would you want to visit first?

Universal Health Corporation -- Diet and Weight Loss Products

Universal Health Corporation -- Home of the ExerBike Plus and No-Gain weight loss pills

Amazing Secrets to Losing Weight Fast!

Most people would chose the third one. This title incorporates power words and phrases like Amazing, Secrets and Fast. The title is compelling and gets the reader's attention. Remember, on some search engines this title may be the only thing one sees in the search results, so make your title work.

Your site's title identifies your site in browser bookmarks. When people bookmark your site, their browser will insert your website's page title in it's bookmark listing. When they finally get around to reviewing their bookmarks they often see dozens of other sites they've previously bookmarked. Therefore it is important to use an enticing title to get people to click on their own bookmark which will bring them to your site.

Your site's title also identify your browser. It appears on the very top window bar of your browser. People often open multiple browsers when surfing the web, and lose track or forget to go back to browser windows they opened earlier. A good title will help to identify your site and entice them to come back.

META TAGS

There are three META tags used by the popular search engines. Meta tags are added to your website's HTML coding, and do not appear on your visible webpage. These tags are placed within the head portion of your HTML document, usually directly beneath your <TITLE> tag.

The "Keyword" META Tag

The "keyword" META tag helps meta capable search engines in indexing your website. It tells the search engine under which search terms your website should come up under. Here is an example of this tag:

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="auto repair, auto service, automotive repair, automotive service, engine repair, oil change">

Within this META tag, use your prioritized list of keywords and commanding combinations. Don't duplicate your keywords too many times. Each keyword should be separated by a comma, and there should be no spaces. Different SEs allow different numbers of keywords.

Make sure all keywords listed in your META tag are related to your site. If you put unrelated keywords in your keyword META tag, some search engines may penalize you or refuse to list you. Be careful not to put competitors' company names, product names or trademarked names in your META tags. Some companies have sued because they found their names in the META tags of their competitors.

The "Description" META Tag

The "description" META tag helps meta capable search engines to summarize your website. Here is an example of this tag:

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Frank's Auto Repair offers the best service and lowest prices for service and repair of your automobile! We specialize in foreign and domestic vehicles. Visit our site for coupons, specials, and free car care tips.">

Within this tag, use one of the descriptions you developed earlier. Keep the tag length under 200 characters. Some SEs allow longer or shorter descriptions. Put the most important part of your description first, for cases where search engines do not use all of it.

Some search engines extract your website's summary from the first 250 characters of your webpage, so be sure you include a good opening paragraph. We will discuss this shortly.

Make sure everything in your description is related to your site. If you put unrelated words or phrases or sentences in your description META tag, some search engines may penalize you or refuse to list you. As discussed above, be careful not to put competitors' company names, product names or trademarked names in your META tags.

The "Robots" META Tag

The "robots" META tag tells meta capable search engines which pages should get indexed, and which pages should not. You may have certain pages which you may not want to show up in the search engines. You may have test pages, private pages created for a particular customer, and so on. If you have a frames site, you wouldn't want to index your HTML documents which display within the various frames which make up your page.

The following options are available for this tag:

all, none, index, noindex, follow, nofollow.

If you wanted all of your pages indexed, you would use this tag on your main page:

<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="all follow">

It would tell the search engine spider to index your main page, then follow any links it finds on that page, and spider those links.

Use this tag on a page which you don't want indexed:

<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex nofollow">

META Tags on Multiple Pages

Consider using a custom set of META tags on each of your webpages. Each set should be fine tuned for the content of that particular page.

It is desirable to create multiple entry pages to your website, each optimized for a specific search engine .

The META tags on each entry page should be fine tuned for the content of that particular page. And for the search engine which will be spidering that page.