SEO News

Whether you require an article writing service for SEO purposes or to create content for your website or publication, choosing the right article writer is essential in ensuring that your readers both trust you and make repeat visits to your website. Here’s what you need to look for in an article writer.

Native Tongue

If you require your articles to be written in English, it is obviously best practice to hire a writer who speaks English as their first language. It’s always very tempting to consider the budget article writers from India and other developing countries, but the reality is this – if they don’t speak English as their home language, they’re going to write sub‐par quality articles. The cost saving simply isn’t worth it, as your readers will see through this immediately.

Sample Work

Every article writer worth their salt should be able to offer you at least two or three sample articles. Good writers will offer articles on different topics (so as to display their dynamic capacity) and write in varying tones. If possible, ask them for their EzineArticles author name and you can have a look at all their work submitted to EzineArticles.

Ezine Rating

Any article writer who writes on a professional basis should have EzineArticles (the most popular article directory) Platinum Status. You can check this out by looking up their author name on EzineArticles’ website. If they don’t have this, you should seriously consider looking at an alternative writer as they are either new to the scene, or have something to hide.

Article Submission

Whilst hiring an article writer will save you a lot of time, doing the submissions to the article directory yourself will most likely cancel out any saving in time. Check if your article writer can submit the articles (with your resource links of course) on your behalf. This will go a long way in ensuring that you are as efficient as possible. If they do offer the

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Derek Jansen is a professional article writer and search engine optimizer. For high quality, 100% original article writing and submission services, click here.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Choose an Article Writer

To learn how to increase search engine rankings and drive website traffic you need to understand the concepts that govern the way the search engines work.

Without an understanding of these principles and a system to incorporate them into everything you do online, you will not get the success you are seeking.

On the other hand, learn how to effectively utilize them and you will start dominating niches all over the Internet driving thousands of visitors to your site on a daily basis.

So what are the principles that rule search engine rankings and how do I improve mine? Here they are:

1. Relevancy
2. Popularity
3. Originality

Relevancy

Relevancy is something defined as having relationship to. For example if your website was about golf, related content would include information about such things as golf clubs, golf courses and golf lessons.

Content about anything other than the topic of the website or related topics would not score for relevancy, thereby having no chance of ranking in the search engines. Search engines check your site for relevancy.

You need to be right on topic for whatever it is you are targeting with the content you create. A final word of caution about relevancy: Relevancy alone will not rank your site. You could have the most highly relevant, best original content ever written posted at your site, however if there are no sites pointing to it, it will never rank in the search engines. Relevancy does not work without the concepts of popularity and original content.

The first step is to choose the keyword or keyword phrase you want your content to target. Let’s say you’re trying to get a higher ranking for this keyword phrase, the topic I am currently writing about, “Improve Search Engine Ranking”. First, you would want to find what people are searching for and specifically target that keyword if you want your content to rank for that phrase.

Make sure you include the keyword phrase in the title of the article. For example, your title could be “Strategies To Improve Search Engine Ranking”. Always try to put the keyword or keyword phrase as the first few words of the article title. Always remember to use the keyword phrase, several times throughout the article. Finally make sure your content remains 100% relevant to the keyword phrase.

Popularity

Popularity works together with relevancy to improve search engine rankings. Popularity is based on two key measures:

1. How Many Sites Link to Your Site

A site’s popularity is measured first by the number of sites that directly link to your site.

To demonstrate popularity let’s take a quick look at YouTube. YouTube is one of the most popular sites on the Internet, Why? All links and embed codes taken from YouTube and embedded on other sites, whether on Facebook, Myspace, a blog, a sales page or a website, create automatic links back to YouTube where the video is hosted. Every time someone shares a YouTube video a link is created.

With the number of videos shared, Youtube gets thousands of new incoming links daily. This is one of the reasons why YouTube videos rank very highly on the search engines. Their site is super popular.

2. The Popularity of the Sites Linking to You

The more popular the site linking to you is, the better the score given by the search engines.

The more incoming links to your site the more popular it is. It is therefore always important to syndicate the content of your site (with a direct link to the content on your site), to as many sites as possible. The Internet presents a host of sites where you can post your content for free to increase your search engine rankings, including popular high ranking sites like article directories, blogs, social bookmarking sites, video
sites, press release and social network pages.

Originality

Originality basically refers to unique content. In simple terms the search engines ask the question, is this same piece of content all over the Internet? As an example, if I took a highly relevant and popular article from my site and posted it to hundreds of sites it would not rank high in the search engines as it would no longer be deemed unique.

There is no doubt that spreading your unique content across the Internet is important for driving traffic to your site. The secret is to make several unique versions of the same information all with a backlink to your original article posted on your site. Spinning is a popular term used to describe the process of changing the titles, key words and phrases throughout your article to make several unique versions. Placing these all
over the Internet with a back link to your site will improve rankings.

Follow the steps above and I promise you will see an increase in the number of visitors to your site.

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To learn more about how you can improve search engine ranking and drive more traffic to your site it is important to learn all you can to rank highly. Visit the following link to access my Free Marketing Training and start ranking today.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Easy Ways to Improve Search Engine Ranking and Drive Traffic

In June, 2010, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled charges that Twitter’s micro-blogging site had engaged in lax security practices that amounted to “unfair and deceptive trade practices”.

While previous cases brought by the FTC for lax security procedures focused on lax electronic controls, the Twitter case focused on lax administrative controls. Webmasters of SaaS and ecommerce sites who fail to learn and apply the critical lessons of the Twitter case do so at their peril.

Twitter Case Facts – Two Hacks

The FTC’s complaint against Twitter alleged that lax administrative controls for data security permitted at least two hackers to acquire administrative control of Twitter resulting in access to private personal information of users, private tweets, and most surprising – the ability to send out phony tweets.

Here’s how the hackers got access to Twitter. According to the FTC, hacker no. 1 was able to hack in by using an automated password guessing tool that sent thousands of guesses to Twitter’s login form. The hacker found an administrative password that was a weak, lowercase, common dictionary word, and with it the hacker was able to reset several user passwords which the hacker posted on a website that others could access and use to send phony tweets.

Hacker no. 2 compromised the personal email account of a Twitter employee and learned of the employee’s passwords that were stored in plain text. With these passwords, the hacker was then able to guess the similar Twitter administrative passwords of the same employee. Once into Twitter, the hacker reset a user’s password and was able to access the user information and tweets for any Twitter user.

Twitter Settlement Lessons

The FTC noted that Twitter’s website privacy policy promised: “We employ administrative, physical, and electronic measures designed to protect your information from unauthorized access.”

Focusing on Twitter’s administrative controls (more accurately on the lack thereof), the FTC alleged that Twitter failed to take reasonable steps to:

• require employees to use hard-to-guess administrative passwords that they did not use for other programs, websites, or networks; * prohibit employees from storing administrative passwords in plain text within their personal e-mail accounts;
• suspend or disable administrative passwords after a reasonable number of unsuccessful login attempts;
• provide an administrative login webpage that is made known only to authorized persons and is separate from the login page for users;
• enforce periodic changes of administrative passwords, for example, by setting them to expire every 90 days;
• restrict access to administrative controls to employees whose jobs required it; and impose other reasonable restrictions on administrative access, such as by restricting access to specified IP addresses.
• The FTC settlement included (among other things) the requirement that Twitter set up and manage a comprehensive data security policy that will be reviewed by an independent auditor periodically for ten years.

Conclusion

The FTC represents consumer interests to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices. Privacy and data security have been high-priority issues for the FTC, as evidenced by the 30 cases brought over the last few years for lax data security practices.

In its investigations of data security cases, the FTC looks at 2 standards:

• what the FTC considers as “standard, reasonable” security procedures, and
• what a website’s privacy policy promises to consumers regarding data security.

If the website’s actual data security practices do not measure up to either of these standards (a worst-case scenario would be the failure to measure up to both), the FTC concludes that the website has engaged in lax security practices that amount to “unfair and deceptive trade practices”. A complaint and costly lawsuit may follow.

The reason that the FTC publishes the results of its settlements is to provide lessons to others regarding what the FTC regards as an “unfair and deceptive trade practice”.

Do you know if your site measures up to the two standards?

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Leading Internet, IP and software lawyer Chip Cooper has automated the process of drafting DigiContracts.com Website Legal Forms for website legal compliance. Use his free online tool — Website Documents Determinator — to determine which documents your website really needs for website legal compliance. Discover how quick, easy, and cost-effective it is to draft your website legal forms at DigiContracts.com.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

SaaS-eCommerce Sites: Twitter Case Provides Critical Lessons in Administrative Security

If your site is currently treating unavailable pages (404 errors) like temporary redirects (302 redirects) you may not have any problems with the search engines but your site is losing out on some important advantages of a proper 404 error.

The Way a 404 Normally Works

This is how a 404 normally works on a website when a search engine, let’s use Google, visits a URL (i.e address) on your website that cannot be found that was previously spidered/indexed as functional:

1. The visit produces a 404 error from the server.
   A 404 error is  provided by your server when an Internet client (i.e. a browser, search engine, etc.) reaches a URL on your site that can not be produced by your server because it is no longer there or it is incorrect.
2. The first time Google encounters this 404 error, it does not remove your URL but it takes note the page is not available and the broken link/missing address will be mentioned in your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard for you to fix ASAP.
3. The second time Google encounters the 404 error it is a good bet the page will be removed from its index and the error will remain in your Webmaster Tools dashboard for fixing. Google will continue to find the broken link until it is fixed, at which point any associated rankings you had for this page can work their way back up to where they were.

Using a 302 Redirect Response Instead of a 404 Error Response

Here is the situation: when a search engine visits a URL that no longer exists, your server delivers a 302 redirect response instead of the proper 404 response. The 302 response is essentially this – “this page is being temporarily redirected” to a page you defined (i.e. your home page). As a result, Google does not see the 404 and Google will retain any search rankings the URL may have because it is expecting the old URL to resurface. In theory, that sounds like a good thing because you get to keep your old ranking (temporarily) while Google visitors are redirected seamlessly to your home page (the page you chose to redirect to).

Why Isn’t this a Good Idea?

1. Visitors end up being rerouted to your home page oblivious to the redirect and end up on a page that may or may not have any relevance to their original search. Not only is this likely to cause an undesirable reaction but it also makes Google look incompetent… something the search engine is not likely to favour you for.
2. Since a 404 is not triggered, there is no way to determine if pages are broken on your website (unless a custom report has been created).
3. 302 redirects do not pass PageRank – so unless the original page is restored, much of the benefit from the links to your old content will evaporate with time.
4. If this practice is utilized site-wide it is conceivable your website rankings would diminish due to the myriad of confusing “temporary” signals provided by your site.

What is the Best Solution?

1. If you have been using 302 redirects in place of a 404, then I strongly recommend restoring the 404 protocol.
2. Create a custom error page for 404s which will give visitors that encounter your error page an indication of how to get back on track. Once Google finds the 404 errors on your site they will be reported to you in your Google Webmaster Tools.
3. Whenever you, as a webmaster, encounter a reported 404 error on your website it is best to quickly 301 (permanently) redirect old URLs to content that is closely relevant to the past content. Not only will this help you to keep visitors to your site happy but 301 redirects will pass forward the critical PageRank (ie. Google credibility) that may have been built on the old URL.

Additional Relevant Content

Here are some tools and articles that are relevant to this article:

• Server Header Checker Tool: using this tool you can see what responses particular web pages on any website are providing to Internet client (i.e. a browser, search engine, etc.)
• Permanent 301 versus Temporary 302 Redirects: read Scott Van Achte’s article on how these two redirects differ and when each is best utilized.
• Increase Your Links with Google Webmaster Tools: here is a simple trick to use the reports in Google Webmaster Tools to increase your site’s chances for success.
• How to 301 Redirect Non-WWW to WWW URLs: This is a tutorial on how to redirect your non-www domain (http://yourdomain.com) to your www version (http://www.yourdomain.com) in order to consolidate PageRank and minimize one form of duplicate listings/content in search engines.
• How to Redirect an Old Domain to a New Domain
• A page full of Free  Web Site Marketing Tutorials and SEO Tips
• Our Recommended Web Marketing Tools: tried and true tools for search engine optimization (SEO), competitor analysis tools and even useful programs like a powerful password manager we couldn’t live without (direct link), can all be found here.

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Ross Dunn is the CEO/Founder at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Ross’s articles and those of the veteran StepForth team at news.stepforth.com or contact us at www.stepforth.com, Tel – 250-385-1190, Toll Free – 877-385-5526, Fax – 250-385-1198

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Using a 302 Redirect in Place of a 404 Error is a Bad Idea

If your site is currently treating unavailable pages (404 errors) like temporary redirects (302 redirects) you may not have any problems with the search engines but your site is losing out on some important advantages of a proper 404 error.

The Way a 404 Normally Works

This is how a 404 normally works on a website when a search engine, let’s use Google, visits a URL (i.e address) on your website that cannot be found that was previously spidered/indexed as functional:

1. The visit produces a 404 error from the server.
   A 404 error is  provided by your server when an Internet client (i.e. a browser, search engine, etc.) reaches a URL on your site that can not be produced by your server because it is no longer there or it is incorrect.
2. The first time Google encounters this 404 error, it does not remove your URL but it takes note the page is not available and the broken link/missing address will be mentioned in your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard for you to fix ASAP.
3. The second time Google encounters the 404 error it is a good bet the page will be removed from its index and the error will remain in your Webmaster Tools dashboard for fixing. Google will continue to find the broken link until it is fixed, at which point any associated rankings you had for this page can work their way back up to where they were.

Using a 302 Redirect Response Instead of a 404 Error Response

Here is the situation: when a search engine visits a URL that no longer exists, your server delivers a 302 redirect response instead of the proper 404 response. The 302 response is essentially this – “this page is being temporarily redirected” to a page you defined (i.e. your home page). As a result, Google does not see the 404 and Google will retain any search rankings the URL may have because it is expecting the old URL to resurface. In theory, that sounds like a good thing because you get to keep your old ranking (temporarily) while Google visitors are redirected seamlessly to your home page (the page you chose to redirect to).

Why Isn’t this a Good Idea?

1. Visitors end up being rerouted to your home page oblivious to the redirect and end up on a page that may or may not have any relevance to their original search. Not only is this likely to cause an undesirable reaction but it also makes Google look incompetent… something the search engine is not likely to favour you for.
2. Since a 404 is not triggered, there is no way to determine if pages are broken on your website (unless a custom report has been created).
3. 302 redirects do not pass PageRank – so unless the original page is restored, much of the benefit from the links to your old content will evaporate with time.
4. If this practice is utilized site-wide it is conceivable your website rankings would diminish due to the myriad of confusing “temporary” signals provided by your site.

What is the Best Solution?

1. If you have been using 302 redirects in place of a 404, then I strongly recommend restoring the 404 protocol.
2. Create a custom error page for 404s which will give visitors that encounter your error page an indication of how to get back on track. Once Google finds the 404 errors on your site they will be reported to you in your Google Webmaster Tools.
3. Whenever you, as a webmaster, encounter a reported 404 error on your website it is best to quickly 301 (permanently) redirect old URLs to content that is closely relevant to the past content. Not only will this help you to keep visitors to your site happy but 301 redirects will pass forward the critical PageRank (ie. Google credibility) that may have been built on the old URL.

Additional Relevant Content

Here are some tools and articles that are relevant to this article:

• Server Header Checker Tool: using this tool you can see what responses particular web pages on any website are providing to Internet client (i.e. a browser, search engine, etc.)
• Permanent 301 versus Temporary 302 Redirects: read Scott Van Achte’s article on how these two redirects differ and when each is best utilized.
• Increase Your Links with Google Webmaster Tools: here is a simple trick to use the reports in Google Webmaster Tools to increase your site’s chances for success.
• How to 301 Redirect Non-WWW to WWW URLs: This is a tutorial on how to redirect your non-www domain (http://yourdomain.com) to your www version (http://www.yourdomain.com) in order to consolidate PageRank and minimize one form of duplicate listings/content in search engines.
• How to Redirect an Old Domain to a New Domain
• A page full of Free  Web Site Marketing Tutorials and SEO Tips
• Our Recommended Web Marketing Tools: tried and true tools for search engine optimization (SEO), competitor analysis tools and even useful programs like a powerful password manager we couldn’t live without (direct link), can all be found here.

---

Ross Dunn is the CEO/Founder at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Ross’s articles and those of the veteran StepForth team at news.stepforth.com or contact us at www.stepforth.com, Tel – 250-385-1190, Toll Free – 877-385-5526, Fax – 250-385-1198

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Using a 302 Redirect in Place of a 404 Error is a Bad Idea

Many webmasters complain about their website not ranking well in the SERPs. What they fail to realize is that their website is not search engine friendly. An SEO friendly website contains more than keyword filled Meta tags and content.

A website must be created and designed keeping the visitors in mind. Search engines can get your website in the top ranking; but a well crafted website ensures that the visitor gets converted into a customer. You need to ensure that your website is both search engine and visitor friendly.

Tips for Creating a Search Engine Friendly Website:

Fill the Meta tags: Search engines come across the Meta tags well before the content. A major part of the search result is picked up from the Meta tags. The title tag helps the search engines and visitors in understanding what the webpage is about. The Meta description gets listed as the snippet in the search result. Well formatted Meta tags play a major role in making the website SEO friendly.

Include Breadcrumbs in the website: Breadcrumbs are navigational links present in the inner pages of the website. They link a web page to its respective category and sub category. Breadcrumbs help in the even distribution of the page rank to the connected web pages. You must include keywords as the anchor text of the breadcrumbs. Remember to place the breadcrumbs before the main heading of the web page.

Perform the On Page Optimization Activities: SEO of a website mainly consists of on page optimization activities. Implement these tips:

• Add a heading tag to the web page.
• As search engines cannot read images, add an alt tag to the images.
• Name the image according to the selected keywords. Use hyphens to separate long keywords.
• Place a keyword as the anchor text of a link.
• Optimize the content of your web page. Make sure that the keyword density doesn’t exceed 2%.

Interlink all the important web pages: Interlinking web pages helps the search spiders to navigate the website. Web pages can be linked based on their category. E.g. an online book store can link their web pages based on the authors. It has been observed that a well linked website will always rank better than the non-linked websites. You can link to the important pages of your website from the homepage by using appropriate anchor text.

Use SEO Friendly URL Structure: Search engines do not understand the URL’s which contain the PHP / ASP code in them. A SEO friendly URL structure contains words separated by hyphens. You can rewrite your URL’s manually via the.htaccess file. WordPress gives you an option to change your URL structure with one click.

Generate XML Sitemaps: Sitemaps help the engines discover all the pages in your website. There are a lot of free XML sitemap generator tools available online. You can include the “priority” and “change frequency” tags in your sitemap. The priority tag indicates the importance of the web page to the search engines. The Change frequency tag tells the search engines how frequently the page is likely to change.

A fully optimized site increases your chances of ranking well in the SERPs. Once in the top SERPs, your website has a good chance of converting its visitors into customers.

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Debbie A. Everson is the CEO of SearchMar Inc., experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Ask about our search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media, or email marketing services and request a free consultation. Read my SEO Blog for hints and tips and follow me on Twitter @searchmar. Call 1.866.885.6263 to speak to an SEO Consultant.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Create a Search Engine Friendly Website

In this modern age, it is increasingly important to make sure your websites are optimized for the major search engines through the use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices.  The current top three search engines are Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Let’s face it though; Google is the major player and they set the standards when it comes to the Internet search industry.

There are a few basic practices you can follow to make your site more friendly to the search engines and thus rank higher for certain keyword phrases when users search for them.  You just need to make sure you are conducting these practices properly.  Being at the top of the search engines for your target keywords is a make or break factor for the success of your business. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a variety of misconceptions surrounding search engine optimization today. One big misconception that many website owners have is that once they have their site set up and they submit it to search engines, they’ll get traffic right away. The truth is that there is a lot more to bringing traffic to your website. Search engine optimization is a task that is ongoing and it does take quite a bit of work. Instead of submitting your site to the search engines right away, here are a few critical steps to great SEO that you should take first. Read the rest of this entry »

Confusion Runs Rampant
Many folks in the e-commerce industry have found themselves scratching their heads in confusion over the new PCI PA-DSS (Payment Card Industry, Payment Application – Data Security Standard) rules and guidelines.  PCI Compliance has never been an easy topic to wrap one’s head around and the new DSS is starting to cause panic among some involved in businesses that operate online.  The July 1, 2010 compliance deadline is looming and many payment applications are still not DSS certified.

This is not good news for anyone involved in the e-commerce sector.  There is no set punishment established for non-compliance with the new PA-DSS.   If an online storeowner is found to be non-compliant then they will likely be charged increased merchant fees and penalties, face hefty fines and in some cases have their merchant account or even their entire website terminated.

Most of the confusion and controversy revolves around who exactly needs to comply with the new DSS.  The answer to this is somewhat complex but the primary rule of thumb is that if your store processes credit cards online then you need to use a shopping cart that is PA-DSS certified in order to be PCI Compliant.

As an e-commerce merchant, vendor or retailer (those operating a business online), it is your duty to ensure you are utilizing fully PCI Compliant Hosting and that your shopping cart application is PA-DSS certified.  If either your host or cart is not compliant with the PCI than your site is in trouble.  Many carts and other merchant service providers are still shuffling to get scanned and added to the list of compliant applications before the July deadline.

If you are in the market for new shopping cart software than you do not want to use a program that is non-compliant with the PCI or PA-DSS.  It is not worth losing money or possibly your business over something so simple to remedy.  The responsibility falls on you – the storeowner – to find a host and cart that are compliant with the PCI and to fulfill the required network scans and questionnaires.

PCI Compliance vs PA-DSS – what’s the difference?
The PA-DSS (Payment Application – Data Security Standard) applies to products that are distributed as applications that people can purchase and then do whatever they wish.  For example, this applies to shopping cart programs and e-commerce solutions.  The DSS started as the PABP (Payment Application Best Practices) by Visa before becoming affiliated with the PCI Security Council, which represents all five major credit card companies.  In order to be PCI Compliant you must be on a DSS certified application.  In other words, your cart must be compliant.

PCI Compliance is a broader set of rules and guidelines.  The PCI Compliance rules are the standards for the way in which credit card transactions and other confidential information is processed online.

As of July 2010, both PCI and PA-DSS Compliance are necessary for a site that accepts credit card payments.  The PCI applies to all e-commerce businesses, web hosts, shopping carts, payment gateways and merchant account providers.  When a company becomes DSS certified they are then added to Visa’s list of compliant companies.  The PCI Compliance rules are the standards for the way in which credit card transactions and other confidential information is processed online.

In order to be fully PCI compliant with the new PA-DSS, level 4 merchants must be running compliant applications on their site (such as their shopping cart).  Their web hosts must also be PCI compliant by using properly encrypted networks, regularly updating their anti-virus software and performing regular system scans.

There are a number of PCI scanning companies approved by Visa and MasterCard that will help small merchants pass PCI audits and complete the PCI questionnaire in order to show PCI compliance. Being fully PCI and DSS compliant is like having an insurance policy in the event of a security breech.

For the list of requirements that QSAs will be checking for in your scan check out:

https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pci_pa_dss.shtml

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Forrest Yingling is the Marketing Director for WebNet Hosting, Premier Partner Miva Hosts since 2004.   WebNet Hosting provides PCI Compliant Miva Web Hosting and e-commerce solutions.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

PCI Compliance and the New PA-DSS: Vital Information for Online Storeowners

Anyone who’s learnt the basics of SEO has come across the two little words – meta tags. Some argue that meta tags are important, whilst other dismiss their use altogether. Here’s what you need to know about meta tags, their importance and their use.

Back in the early days of search engine optimization (SEO), any given website’s ranking in the search engines relied heavily on on‐site optimization factors. These factors included, first and foremost, meta tags, as well as header tags, keyword density, and so forth.

As search engines have evolved, they have moved weighting away from on‐site factors and towards off‐site factors (as well as a host of other tiny factors). For this reason, meta tags no longer carry the weight that they used to, but certainly do still serve a very important function.

Meta tags are broken into three tag types – “title”, “keywords” and “description”. We’ll look at all three separately.

The title tag is what is displayed in the actual header of the internet browser (be it Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari). This tag is considered the most important of the three and is best utilized to reflect the keywords that the page is attempting to rank for. This tag is also the tag that shows up as the heading in a search result, so make sure that it includes your keywords, and an attractive copy t o catch the searcher’s attention! Keep in mind that the search engines will only display a certain title length, so try keep your titles to seven words or less.

The keywords tag is pretty self‐explanatory. This is used to reflect the keywords that best describe the page itself. Its best practice to insert your keywords in this tag, in the order of highest importance to lowest importance ‐ separated by commas. There’s ongoing debate as to how many keywords you should or shouldn’t use in this tag, but the best bet is keep it less than six separate keywords or phrases. More importantly, make sure that the content of each page is reflective of the chosen keywords (i.e., try use the keywords in the page content as well).

The last of the meta tags is the description tag. This tag is what is reflected under your heading tag in the search engine results (although some search engines mix and match this with other information). You need to see this tag as your opportunity to lure visitors through to your website, so try to make it as compelling as possible, and sprinkle your keywords throughout the copy if at all possible. The ideal length for this tag is 15 – 25 words.

And that sums up the long and short of meta tags. As mentioned, although they don’t carry the weight that they used to, they’re still an essential tool in the webmaster’s tool kit. Make sure that you create customized meta tags for each page on your website, and don’t be afraid to get creative about how you write your copy for the description tag!

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By Derek Jansen, author of The SEO Basics Course. – Sign up for your free seo course and learn the SEO basics today!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Low Down On Meta Tags