Top 10 SEO Tips and Tricks | Meta Description and Title Tag Tip 7

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Tip 7 of my Top 10 Tips and Tricks for building a search engine optimized (SEO) website from the ground up is Meta Description and Title Tag.

Differences Between HTML and XHTML

In HTML the <meta> tag has no end tag.

In XHTML the <meta> tag must be properly closed.

The Meta description tag is a HTML code snippet that resides inside the head(<head> </head>) section of a web page. It usually is placed after the Title tag and before the Meta keywords tag, although the order is not important.

The correct syntax for the Meta description XHTML tag is: <meta name="description" content="The well thought out of your page in a sentence or two goes here." />

The Title tag is the element defines the title of the document.

The correct syntax for the Title XHTML tag is:<title>Page Title goes here.</title>

Why does Google care about meta descriptions?
We want snippets to accurately represent the web result. We frequently prefer to display meta descriptions of pages (when available) because it gives users a clear idea of the URL’s content. This directs them to good results faster and reduces the click-and-backtrack behavior that frustrates visitors and inflates web traffic metrics. Keep in mind that meta descriptions comprised of long strings of keywords don’t achieve this goal and are less likely to be displayed in place of a regular, non-meta description, snippet. And it’s worth noting that while accurate meta descriptions can improve clickthrough, they won’t affect your ranking within search results.

…Use quality descriptions
Finally, make sure your descriptions are… descriptive. It’s easy to become lax on the quality of the meta descriptions, since they’re not directly visible in the UI for your site’s visitors. But meta descriptions might be displayed in Google search results — if the description is high enough quality. A little extra work on your meta descriptions can go a long way towards showing a relevant snippet in search results. That’s likely to improve the quality and quantity of your user traffic.

The Meta Description Tag

The Meta Description Tag provides a short description of the page. In some situations this description is used as a part of the snippet shown in the search results. The Meta Description Tag should be your best Marketing foot forward. In the case where the search engine uses your Meta Description Tag for the text in the search results, this description must convince the searcher to click on your link.

Live Search Search Result for golf clubs

<title>Discount Golf Clubs and Custom Golf Club Sets at Golfclubs.com</title>
<meta name="description" content="Discount golf clubs and unique custom golf clubs designs are available at Golfclubs.com."></meta>

Meta Description Tag Example

Meta Description Tags must be unique and relevant to each page and should contain at the minimum the two or three most important keywords or keyword phrases on that page. Remember you are writing your Meta Description Tag for your readers not the search engines.

The Title Tag
While technically not a meta tag, this tag is frequently used in conjunction with the "Meta Description Tag." The contents of this tag are generally shown as the title in search results (and in the user’s browser when visiting the page or viewing bookmarks). Title Tags must be unique to each page and should contain at the minimum the most important keyword or keyword phrase on that page.

Now you have a handle on the Meta Description Tags and Title Tags you are planning to use on each page. will deal with that with the next time with Tip 8 Submitting to Search Engines (or not).

late,
gary pool

This is a post from Gary Pool’s Search Engine Optimizician&trade blog.