Basic introduction to Internet Marketing - Search Engine Optimization using Meta Tags

Welcome to basic introduction to Internet Marketing - In this article we shall discuss the important role meta tags play in the search engine optimization (SEO) of a website. We'll see how to do a basic on page search engine optimization using meta tags effectively. Before we get on with the different types of meta tags and how effectively you can use them to increase your website's visibility let me give you a brief overview as to how actually a search engine works.

Search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo employ a special software program know as the crawler or the spider to build a list of keywords for every web page on a website they visit. This process is known as web crawling. They start with the most widely used servers and in turn follow all the web addresses found within the website. These web addresses are collected by the spider and sent to the search engine's indexing software. This indexed information is stored on the database.

Google spider crawls a web page and looks for the information in the Meta tags. These tags contain the description about the web page. The most important tag is the description meta tag the contents of which are displayed on the search engine result pages when some user performs a search for your website or search for the keywords associated with your website.

As it turns out meta information on a page is very necessary in order to increase your website's visibility on various search engines. Using good and well researched meta tags can draw more visitors or potential customers to your website and increase your search engine rankings. One way to do this is to do keyword research based on the content of the website and include the selected keywords in your meta tags and main content.

In the following sections we discuss the basics of various Meta tags and how to use them effectively to optimize a web page. So be patient fellows the good stuff is coming

HTML page titles are one of the important tags which require optimization as they appear as the first clickable text in the search engine results. In order to create unique and compelling page titles follow these guidelines:

1. Include your targeted keywords in the title tag - as you aware of the fact that these tags help influence the page rank of your website its imperative that you include your targeted keywords (The keywords you have selected for your web page) in the title tag. Make sure not to repeat any keyword and keep the text concise. Don't make the title tag to long and don't stuff it with keywords which are not relevant to the context of your article. For e.g. if you are selling shoes pick your keywords which are related to selling of shoes. You may also include your organization's name to differentiate your listings from your competitors.
2. Every page should have a unique title - All the pages in your website should have different title containing the keywords relevant to the content they offer. Having the same title for two pages is a bad strategy as the two pages have different content. One way to ensure that the titles are not repeated is to use Google's webmaster tools. This tool shows all the error reports including duplicate titles.
3. Use sensible content in the title tags - for heavens sake don't start your title with "Howdy partner", "Welcome to my website" or "Hey". You can start your title with your organizations name followed by the keywords. If you want to include slogans go ahead but don't forget to include your keywords.

The description tag is one of the most important tags which helps in achieving high position on major search engines and is found between the HEAD tags of your HTML web page. When you make a search on the search engines you see results showing text of your description tag with approximately 150 or more characters as compared to the title tag which only displays 70 characters (including spaces). So this tag gives you a wider space to incorporate you marketing statement. Below are few guidelines which will help you to write effective description tags:

1. KISS Rule - that's right keep it simple stupid rule applies here. Don't get the wrong ideas here as this small piece of information helps your target audience to locate you. Your genius lies in giving a simple and concise description about your organization without the "buy" or "sale" advertizements or promote special deals.
2. Include those keywords - Go ahead and include your targeted keywords in the description tags as you never know when your description tag is displayed on the SERPs (Search engine result pages). Although this tag does influence page rank but it is viewed on the SERPs and has a high chance of being viewed by the search engine user.
3. Avoid keyword stuffing - This is true for all the tags and content. Stuffing keywords is a bad SEO practice and current trends have seen that's sites using such techniques to achieve high page ranks are blacklisted by Google. Google keeps changing the ranking algorithm from time to time so as to discourage such practices.
4. Should be unique - Just like your title tags this one also should be unique to every page. Make it stand out.

Recent trends have seen that this tag has lost importance in the Google search engine however it's still a good idea to include them for the sake of other search engines. Google has publicly stated that its web crawler does not see this tag. Simply including your targeted keywords here won't do you any harm so why not but don't bother too much.

That's right ! In order achieve success you have to present fresh and updated content to your readers. All of the above optimization techniques will not be useful if you have dull and boring content. Best way to come up with innovative idea is to brainstorm the topics you have on mind, discuss them with others and if possible check your content with a proofreader for grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. Try to put yourself in the readers shoes and ask yourself what your article has to offer. Does it solve any purpose ? Is it interesting to read ?

TIP: Include keywords in the content body, avoid flash and large images as they are not indexed by search engines

You don't need to be an expert in content writing (I'm myself very average in content writing to be honest ;) ). Just be updated with the latest information buzzing around the niche you want to serve and try to come up with more innovative ideas and fresh content. Please don't copy content from other sites or blogs. There are plenty of tools out there (e.g. copyscape) to detect copyright violations and you might get into trouble.

Internet Marketing is an import aspect of building presence on the web. Having a website which is searchable has its advantages. The steps mentioned above are a part of onpage seo guide, they are a must but additionally you should also consider some of the off-page optimization stuff such as article marketing, blog marketing and last but not the least social media presence. The power of social media should not be underestimated as social media website are drawing huge volumes of traffic these days. With the right planning and strategy you can achieve success early.

That's all folks ! Will be back later with more interesting news and articles. Till then take care and have a nice day.