The Meta Tag Myths
1. Add every meta tag that
you can.
Take a look at the code of a few
websites out there. Many sites have silly
amounts of tags – far more than they need.
Remember the old adage: keep it simple, stupid.
Don’t add tags unless you know what you’re doing
– and don’t make up your own tag names, because
no-one’s paying any attention to them.
Most of these tags are skipped
over by most search engines anyway. The only
crucial tags are the description tag and the
keywords tag which are both utilized
occasionally. Many other tags are there just for
the sake of crediting the webmaster, author,
etc. These kinds of tags are there mostly for
the sake of other webmasters if they need to
know who to contact about the page itself.
2. Have lots of keywords.
Using the ‘keywords’ meta tag
correctly is good, but don’t get too hung up on
it. Many search engines now ignore it
altogether, including Google and AltaVista.
Remember that putting too much in this tag could
be considered spamming – make sure you don’t put
anything in more than three times, and keep the
keywords related to your site.
As previously stated, many of
your meta tags will be skipped over anyway, but
you should keep to your primary key words and
not worry too much about assembling a gigantic
list. Be descriptive, be honest, don’t be
excessive.
3. Keyword lists must have a
formula.
People have a tendency to get
very distracted by the keyword meta tag – you
shouldn’t misuse it and you definitely shouldn’t
expect miracles from it. It gets skipped more
often than not; even it’s used it is used in
company with the content on your page. If you
want to obsess with optimizing something,
optimize your content.
4. The title tag doesn't
really do much.
Out of all the tags, this one is
the most important when it’s used correctly.
Just like with your site’s content, write your
title tag for your audience first and the search
engines second. Think about your site’s branding
and navigation issues as you create your title
tags.
Your title should be relatively
long. A seven to ten word title is not out of
the question. The title is the first thing that
a search engine really cares about and it should
be the most common thing that you want your
visitors to find you for. Your most important
key words should all be worked into your title.
5. If I copy my competitor's
keywords I will do just as well.
You need to understand tags and
the details of search engine optimization in
general. What works for one site doesn’t
necessarily work for another!
You do not have identical sites
so you cannot work with identical keywords.
Aside from this detail, a site that has been
around longer is more likely to have success
from its key words than a new site. If you are
trying to take over a small niche, you have to
expand and do something that your competitor
hasn’t done yet.
6. If I repeat my keywords in
a comment tag I will rank better.
There was a time long ago when
this was true, but it was a really long time
ago. Search engines are all wise to this trick
nowadays.
7. We need to have as many
different keywords as possible throughout our
site
This is an SEO nightmare. Your
pages need to be focused, not always trying to
cover all basis. Limit your keywords.
8. Anyone can write a
website’s tags.
SEO calls for copywriting and
marketing talent: writing good tags that can
attract both humans and search engine spiders
isn’t easy.
9. Google doesn't rank me by
the description tag, so why should I use it?
Google does still use the
description tag from your site – it displays it
to its users in the results. If there’s no
description tag, they’ll just see a nonsense
excerpt from your site, which is bad. Don’t
forget that there are still plenty of uses for
the description tag. Make the title and the
description complement each other, as they will
often be displayed together.