Why Your Meta Tags are Important to SEO

Depending on where you go, and whose opinion you value, META tags are either a great way to optimize your web content, or a complete waste of time and a throwback to the 1990s.  What is the truth of the matter?  The truth is, of course, that you should do whatever works for you.  If you’re getting loads of traffic just on the content you produce, then perhaps META tags aren’t much of a concern.  However, if your traffic is less than great, and you’re not convinced that you’ve done your best in search engine optimization, then consider going back to the basics and improve META content.

META tags, descriptions, page titles, and keywords are part of your HTML code (which makes up the text of each and every page on the Internet).  Previously, a user had to include these keywords and content for search engines to find a new page.  However, it is true that search engine technology has drastically improved, and META tags are not as vital now as they used to be.  Furthermore, search engine companies discovered that too many SPAMMERS were taking advantage of META tags and keyword stuffing, and profiting from this dishonest practice.  Therefore, their role has been slightly deemphasized.

Still, even though META tags aren’t a “top five factor” anymore, they are still worth a small investment of time.  They should not be ignored or abused.  Rather, take a few seconds to write a brief and concise summary of your page’s content, either by opening the HTML document in Notepad or by adding such tags via a CMS program like WordPress.  (Meta page titles are limited to 65 words, and description to about 150 words)

Now here’s why some people don’t like META tags.  Because there is no guarantee that the search engines will use your descriptions!  But hey, the search engines don’t “guarantee” anything.  The bottom line is that many web masters have personally reported and documented evidence that META tags are still read and indexed by search engines.  (Read this analysis by Tony Soric at Search Engine Land)

If you want to increase your odds of your META tags getting noticed, then stick to the maximum characters rule, and make sure you include important keyword phrases in the description.  So take SEO “dogma” about META tags with a grain of salt.  They may very well work for you, and anything that could work (and that doesn’t cost you much in time) is worthy trying.