Inserting
Meta Tags into Your Website
By Candice Pardue
Learn to insert meta
tags into a website
How To Insert Your Metatags
To insert your metatags, you’ll
need to go to your web page’s HTML and insert the code
above into your HTML below <HTML> and <HEAD>. If
you designed your website using a design program such as
Netscape Composer, you’ll need to insert your metatag
section using the “metatag” function within the
program.
You can pull up this function in
Composer by clicking on “Format” at the top of the
screen, then click on “Page Colors and
Properties”, and then the tab named
“General”. This section is for inserting your
“title”, “description”, and
“keywords”. If you need to change the HTML code
later for other purposes, you can edit it using an HTML
editor such as “Word Pad”.
Another web design program I’m
familiar with is Claris. Claris allows you to completely
edit your HTML and switch back and forth between your web
page and HTML source page.
The hazard of using Claris is that
when you insert a code into your HTML,
Claris automatically inserts a code of
its own. You'll have to watch out for this because when
Claris inserts something extra, it could cause your function
not to work at all. I don’t understand why Claris adds
something that doesn’t belong into your codes, but
it’s happened to me several times. That’s why I
now use Netscape Composer as my design program most of the
time.
Very seldom will you need to change
your metatags for your web pages. The only reason I can
think of that you would want to change your metatags is if
you change purposes, products, or themes of your website all
together. For example, if your website’s theme is
“vitamins” and you change over completely to
marketing "cookware”, then this would definitely
justify changing your metatags. But, if there are no drastic
changes, you can insert them and then leave it alone.
Changing your metatags will only
decrease your search engine rankings because search engines
look for stability in websites. If you would like to test
out new keywords, you can do this simply by duplicating your
web pages into completely new pages and start all over with
your metatags. You can learn more about how to do this in
the “My
First Website” promotion
course.
How to Write Your
MetaTags
As mentioned earlier, you can use my
example on page two to insert into your HTML, and then make
the needed changes to suit your web pages.
If you’re working on your
homepage first, you’ll want to use general keywords
that describe your entire website’s theme.
When you begin to insert metatags for
additional web pages, your keywords will be more specific
(tailored for that particular page).
The below metatag sections may not be
in exact order as they appear in the above example, but
you’ll know by looking at your headings in “
“ which section you’re creating. It’s fairly
simple once you have your code inserted into your HTML. I
think that was the hardest part for me, since I had never
seen HTML code before. It looks so confusing. But, once you
get that part, the rest is pretty easy!
Title - Your Headline...
<title>101 Business Web Site
Ideas - Free Article</title>
Your title is your headline. This is
the first statement the online user will see when your
website appears in the search results at a search engine.
Write something simple, compelling, and and descriptive. The
title example shown sums all the facts up in just a couple
of short phrases. You can read the title of this page and
automatically know the following facts about the website...
1. There are 101 ideas to be found
by clicking on the link to the website.
2. The 101 ideas are all for
starting an online business website.
3. The ideas are FREE!
Your title should be compelling enough
to get your reader to read your description below it. If
it’s not, then you or your web business will not
benefit one iota by getting listed under a top keyword in a
major search engine. So, please examine your titles and
descriptions for effectiveness so that your listing
won’t be a waste of time and effort.
Description - Close the Sale...
<meta name="Description"
content="Need an idea for your new Internet business? Go
here for 101 free business web site ideas...">
Your description sentence(s) will be
typed in between the quotation marks and should be no more
than 100 to 125 characters. You will limit your characters
so that your “complete” description will be listed
and not cut off in mid-sentence.
Your description should support your
title (or headline), restate the benefit, and close the
sale. In this case, “close the sale” simply means
to get them to click to your website. That’s all you
need to accomplish with your listing. If you try to sell the
product, you’ll lose out on many visitors. Your goal is
to get the visitor to your site so that he/she will see your
presentation. Please keep it simple.
Notice in the “description”
example above, I simply stated the same point as my title,
but in a different way. I asked the question “Need an
idea for your new Internet business?” Implying that if
the reader answers “yes”, then he/she must click
to go get “101 free business web site ideas”.
Continue
Meta Tags Article...
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Article written by Candice Pardue,
Online Success for Internet Business. Go here to learn web
design from start to finish. This one's for
beginners...
Learn
HTML from Home
How
to Design an HTML Web Page
Disclaimer: Even though
we have made every effort to provide solid and accurate
information with web design ideas on these pages, Online
Success for Internet Business accepts no responsibility or
does not insure or imply any degree of success in a web
based business or website design career by reading the
material listed on this website. Degrees of web or Internet
success varies greatly dependent upon the attitudes,
attributes and ambition of each individual designer. Please
thoroughly check out any information you find on this site
before indulging in a web design business or presenting
yourself as a webmaster. And, now you know how to insert
meta tags into a website.
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