Are Meta Tags Dead?
By Roxanne McHenry

Meta Tags have been attributed everything from magical ranking powers to a total waste of time, but the reality is somewhere in between. Properly used meta tags can target better positions for your site in the search engines, and help you create more focused web site pages that obtain traffic from tighter, specialized niches.

Meta tags are located in the HTML code in your site and are not visible on your website, but are visible to search engine spiders. These spiders do not see your site graphically as a human does; they see just in the text content and code behind the scenes. Try this tool to see what your site page looks like to a spider. For keywords, I look at the title tag (these are actually visible on in your web browser) and meta keywords and description tags, although other meta tags can help you to keep spiders from indexing private content or "see" what a graphic is via IMG ALT tag descriptions.

Think text! If your site is graphically intense, then utilize the title, keyword meta and description meta tags to provide text content for the search engine spiders. Ideally, your site should contain text content with targeted keywords on the web pages, in addition to the keywords listed in the meta tags.

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In general, MSN factors your title and description tags into your site rankings. Google looks at the title tag keywords and utilizes the description tag only if there is no other text from your pages to pull into a description. Supposedly they both ignore keywords meta tags, but I have found in my experience that MSN provides rankings for keywords in the keyword meta tag in niche sites. Other search engines, like Altavista, look at all meta tags, but remember that important directories like Yahoo! and Open Directory Project do not look at meta tags at all.

Some dos and don'ts:

Do use keyword research tools like Overture's Search Suggestion tool and Wordtracker to find 2-3 word key phrases to target.

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Do use 3-4 keywords or 2-3 keyword phrases in the Title Tag - the most critical tag for rankings. Remember the words farthest to the left have more "weight." You might want to move the company name to the end, unless it includes targeted keywords.

Do create keyword combinations specific to each page on your site based on the page text. Think in terms of themes or subcategories. Example, if you have a garden e-commerce site, for the "bulbs" page use specific keywords like: fall bulbs supplier, tulip bulbs, flowering bulbs.

Do change your meta tags seasonally to include holidays and seasonal changes. Start about 6 weeks before the targeted month or holiday to ensure time for the search engines to pick up the changes in time.

Don't stuff keywords into your tags. More is not always better and can get you banned.

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Don't use the same word more than 3 times in the keyword meta tag, and avoid using the same word consecutively. By omitting commas, you can create more combinations and avoid overusing the same words.

Don't target generic, one-word keywords with extreme competition, for example, gardens or gardening.

Don't make your title tag one long string of keywords. Make it a readable sentence or phrase.

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Meta tags can help you round out your rankings in addition to other factors like page content (important) and link popularity. Do your research and use them wisely. They may not be dead, but meta tags certainly are a part of the overall picture in SEO.

Roxanne McHenry is the owner/SEO consultant of BumbleB Media. BumbleB Media provides a complete, personalized approach to SEO and submissions including other marketing techniques and ideas to get the most exposure on the Web. Visit http://www.seoproz.com today for a 10% discount on services or e-mail Roxanne@seo-optimization-pros.com.