How To Insert Web Meta Tags

How To Insert Web Meta Tags

How To Insert Web Meta TagsIn this HTML lesson for beginners we’re going ot look at how to insert web meta tags in your pages.

To insert your meta tags, you’ll need to go to your web page’s HTML and insert the code below

<HTML> and <HEAD>

If you designed your website using a program such as Netscape Composer, you’ll need to insert your metatag section using the “metatag” function within the program.

Inserting Meta Tags into Your Website

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 code later for other purposes, you can edit it using an HTML editor such as “Word Pad”.

Many web design editors allow you to completely edit your HTML and switch back and forth between your web page and HTML source page.

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 meta tags 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 examples on how to write meta tags, 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 keyword phrases that describe your entire website’s theme.

When you begin to insert meta tags for additional web pages, your keywords will be more specific (tailored for that particular page).

Headline and Meta Description

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!

Meta 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 phrase 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.

Meta 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 or 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 or she must click to go get “101 free business web site ideas”. SEO is a valued part of website design so be sure and take it seriously.

That’s it for how to insert web meta tags and I hope you will keep learning all you can to become a website designer to challenge the best of them. – Bob Pardue

Meta Tags