A few years ago I read, "By now, nearly all web site developers know the importance of using the META tags on each web page, between the <TITLE> and </TITLE> tags. Without these, most search engines won't know to list your site even if you have made a submission." Believe it or not, I still encounter financial advisor websites that do not have identifying META tags. Go figure. It's so easy to do, once you know how.

Three META tags (specific lines of code at the beginning of a web page) are all that is necessary to get your site the attention it needs from web search engines such as google.com. These engines roam the web continuously to collect, categorize and log the web pages they find. With the proper META tags, your web pages can be recorded in the major search engines in six weeks or less. This can happen without spending a dime to submit your site to 400 or more search engines, although this is not a bad idea to initiate and accelerate recognition of your site.

Be smart

Some rules and logic apply. Repetition and wrong words hurt. Common spelling mistakes can cripple the efforts of people as they look for you, forcing them into giving up before they find you, so include common misspellings. Think of the web as a maddening toy-grabbing arcade game with some good things available among the junk. You'll understand why folks give up so easily. Anticipate their errors looking for you and build their mistakes into your META tags.

Observe the limits for the three most important META tags:

TITLE tag: 69 character limit including spaces.
META tag keywords: fewer than 1,000 characters including spaces with little repetition.
META tag descriptions: under 200 characters in length including spaces.

Use relevant <TITLE> tag content. Be sure to include your company name, a short description and your own name. Web users will see your <TITLE> tag information in the bookmark or favorite folder of the browser. Search engines consider the content of the <TITLE> tag when registering a site, so be very specific and avoid generic terms.

Use <META> tags for your site's keywords and description. These mini indexes list the content to be found when visiting your site. These tags give you control over the information that will be processed by a search engine. Your <META> tag descriptions will be displayed in many search engines to entice surfers to visit your site. Without being findable in search engines, someone must know your exact URL. This alone can lose half the people looking for you. Make it easy for them with proper, good META tags.

<META> tag keyword: Use plurals for your keywords. Search engines will process both the singular and plural form, so repeating both is not necessary. Avoid 'word stuffing' or repetition. This may cause a search engine to penalize your site's placement. Use commas to separate your keywords. Think like you potential customer or visitor. What terms would they use to find a site with the content, products or services your site offers?

Try This:  Brainstorm at least 50 words then narrow down and focus on your content.

Try This:  Put your list of keywords into a program like Excel and sort them alphabetically, then remove all the duplicates.

Try This:  Then put them into a text editor, remove all the line breaks and spaces after the comma and put them all into one continuous line. Then go to the end of the line and look in the status bar or wherever the character count is... to make sure you are within the number of character limits.

When searching on the web, people give up more easily than in a library where things are better organized. Remember the Dewy Decimal System? Plan ahead carefully. Differentiate yourself in your META tags and reap pleasant consequences.

Happy Marketing!

John

Questions? Email jhmco@melchinger.com

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