In last week\u2019s article Meta Tags & Title Tag Part One we described the overwhelming importance of the Title tag as well as key mistakes to avoid when creating it. In this week\u2019s follow up Part Two we will describe the value of the Description tag and Keyword tag and lastly show you how to find them so you can evaluate.<\/p>\n
While not as important as the Title tag the Description tag is still indeed very important and deserves your attention and creativity. It is a short description of what your page is about in under two hundred characters (this isn\u2019t a rule but it\u2019s a common practice). Think of it as an expansion of your Title tag, which goes into further detail.<\/p>\n
We have the same admonishments for the Description tag that we have for the Title tag:<\/p>\n
1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Keep it spam free. Write naturally for the USER and NOT for the search engine. This does not mean \u2018don\u2019t put in keywords\u2019. Of course you must put in your keywords however not to the point where it no longer reads naturally.<\/p>\n
2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Keep it focused to the content of the actual page itself.<\/p>\n
3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Keep it brief, under 200 words.<\/p>\n
4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Keep it fresh! Don\u2019t use the same description tag for all pages! Get creative and have a unique Description tag for each page.<\/p>\n
Not as potent as it used to be and truth be told is now completely useless, we present to you the Keyword meta tag. \u201cHow could that be?\u201d You might say. Surely since it is called the \u2018keyword tag\u2019 it must be of the utmost importance. In days of old it certainly was but due to abuse by SEOs Google subsequently removed the Keyword meta tag from its algorithm and has formally stated that it does not use the Keyword meta tag in its web ranking.<\/p>\n
With the above in mind, in doing your DIY SEO Health Check-up you can completely ignore the Keyword tag.<\/p>\n