Search engine optimisation articles for Webmasters
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Search engine optimisation articles for Webmasters
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Page titles, Meta tags and Body text – what you need to knowPage titles, meta tags and body text, are three crucial elements of a web page that work together to make an effective, powerful web page. Here’s what you need to know to have a successful website that gets the hits rolling in from the search engines! What are Page Titles and why are they important? Page Titles are the words you see in the topmost bar of your internet web page browser. They are essentially the “Title Tag” in your HTML code for your web page. If you were to view the source code of your web page, you would find the Title Tags between the <HEAD> section of your code. It would look something like this: The <TITLE> of your website is one of the most important and powerful elements of your website. All Search Engines consider the keywords in this tag and generally give a lot of importance in their ranking systems. The <TITLE> tag has special relevance because many search engines will use it exactly as it appears on your web page. The words in your <TITLE> tag appear as links to your page on SERP (Search engine results page). Another reason why page titles are important is it is used by browsers to name the page when it is book marked. What are Meta tags and why are they important? Meta tags are hidden html tags of an html document. They are not displayed in a browser but they provide a browser or search engine robot with useful information. They are included in the <HEAD> tag, along with the <Title> tag. When people mention “Meta Tags”, they are usually referring to “Meta Description Tags” and “Meta Keywords” tag. The “Meta Description Tags” allows webmasters to describe their web page; they are usually placed below the <TITLE> tag. The “Meta Keywords” tag allows webmasters to include keywords or phrases that best describe the web site. When writing Meta Keywords, make sure you only include words that appear on the text of your web page. Avoid repeating keywords more than 3-7 times in your Meta description because some search engines might consider it to be spamming. The Importance of Body Text The text on your web site holds immense importance. It is the heart and soul of your web page, it is what visitors see, read, respond or react to. You want the Copy of your body text to be both, useful for your visitors and noticed by search engines. Firstly, make sure that you are writing for your website from the visitors perspective. Make sure you know who your targeted audience is and what you believe is important for your audience. With these in mind, make a list of important keywords and key phrases you believe are relevant to your web site. Try to maintain your key phrases as high up in the body of your text as possible, the higher up it is, the more important it is considered by search engines. It is ideal to include about 250 words of text per page, with a keyword density of about 3-7%. Remember, if you use your key words too many times on one page, search engines may consider this spamming. The trick to good SEO is keeping things simple. While search engine algorithms may change over time, maintaining the simple things like Page Titles, Meta tags and Body text will hold your web page in good stead over time. |
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