Selecting Meta tags and Keywords for a web page:
Meta tags can help improve your placement in search engines and can therefore help increase traffic to your web site. If you have a web site, you probably know how difficult it is to build quality traffic to a web site. More and more people are relying on search engines such as Google and Yahoo to find what they are looking for. If your web site does not deploy proper on-page SEO techniques with proper meta tags, your web pages is unlikely to be found in Search Engine Results Pages or SERPs. In the past, search engines relied on the "keywords" meta tags in the header of your html code to build keyword indexing for your web page. However, that has changed dramatically with search engine now focusing on the content more than the meta tag keywords. Now you must have matching content on your page if you're using keywords. If they are out of sync, search engines are going to penalize your web site. Obviously you can not stuff keywords in your header like in the past to get a good ranking.
You also need to understand that by randomly adding keywords to your header will do no good to your website. Choosing proper keywords in your meta tags are very important. If your keywords don't match with the content on the page, submitting your web site to the search engines is not going to help, because proper and relevant keywords are major factors in determining how a high your site is going to rank in SERPs. Remember, when it comes to on-page Search Engine Optimization(SEO), meta tags may not be everything but they still add lot of value if done correctly.
Meta tag Example:
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Julie's Bridal Shop</TITLE>
<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="bridal accessories, flowers, Wedding photography, Wedding dress">
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Bridal accessories, flowers, Wedding photography, Wedding dress, Denver Bridal shop">
<META NAME="Author" CONTENT="contact@yourdomain.com">
</HEAD>
It is all about Relevance:
Your keywords should ALWAYS be relevant to the content on the page that they describe. Remember, search engine spiders or robot are much more smarter and that can easily identify content and keywords discrepancies. Ten years ago, search engines sometimes relied on the information within the meta tags without reading through the contents of the page. This led your page to be ranked higher in search results even though you might not have relevant contents. However, this is no longer the case. If your web page content is not matching the meta tag keywords, you are going to be penalized by search engines. However, if you do have matching content and keywords, you're going to see good results. Adding random keywords and phrases to your web site will not only frustrate your visitors but also cause poor performance in SERPs listings. If you continue to do so, your web site may even get banned from search engines listing.
Highly relevant keywords will attract visitors who are actually interested in the products and services your website offers. At the end of the day, it is better to attract fewer visitors who actually have an interest in your products and services than it is to attract more visitors who leave immediately. Remember, if a visit doesn't translate into a sale, it is just another lost business opportunity.
