How to use Meta Tags
Meta Tag
Do you use Meta Tags?
I have been recently reading about Meta Tags. What are Meta Tags? Well simply put Meta Tags are used to give descriptive information about your website to search engines. These Meta Tags give descriptive information about the content, the author, specific keywords, and even the language of your site. These Meta Tags are in a language for search engines so that the search engines can quickly read what your site is about by reading these Meta Tags.
What I didn’t know was how to write a proper Meta Tag and where to put them. What I found out is that writing a Meta Tag is not hard and the best place to start to put Meta Tags are in the Header of your blog.
So I thought I would go to the header of my blog to see if Meta Tags were in use. From the looks of it I didn’t have Meta Tags in it. What do Meta Tags look like?
Here are a couple of examples of what a Meta Tag looks like:
1. <meta name=”description” content=”add description of your blog here”/>
2. <meta name=”keywords” content=”add your keywords here separated by commas”/>
The first Meta Tag gives the Search Engine the description of your site. The second Meta Tag gives the keywords of your site.
Note: If you are like me and are not familiar with writing code don’t worry. I found a website that will quickly create all the Meta Tags that you need to put in your header. The link is at the bottom of this post.
So you may want to go to your header and see if you have Meta Tags in use. Here is how you do it.
1. Go to the Dashboard of your blog
2. Go to Appearance and then Editor
3. On the right side you will see a number of Templates. Find the one that says Header (header.php) and click on it.
4. Take a look through the header code to see if you have any code that has Meta in it like I described above. If you don’t, like I didn’t, then you may want to add it.
Word of Caution: Be very careful when editing your header. I am not an expert at adding Meta Tags to your header so I am going to give you a link to the instructions that I used that are in the WordPress Documentation. Again, I am not an expert at writing or changing code and I don’t want to lead you in the wrong direction. I did follow these instuctions myself and put the Meta Tags in my header. It wasn’t that difficult so if you want to add the Meta Tags to your header the instructions are pretty clear. If you are unfamiliar with adding code to your header you may want someone else to do it. If I can be of assistance just let me know and I will try to help.
Here is the link to the Meta Tags in WordPress. The whole section is very interesting.
If you are not familiar with writing code I did find a site that will create all the Meta Tags that you might want to put in your header. Here is the link to Addme. All you need to do is fill out the form boxes with what you want for Meta Tags and with a click of a button it generates all the Meta Tags for you. Then you just copy and paste it into your blog header.
So after drafting this post I just thought I would do a quick search in Plugins on Meta Tags to see what would come up. Of course I found several plugins on Meta Tags. I found an interesting one called Meta SEO Pack. It looks like it might be a good plugin to install. I have installed it and once installed it allows you to add a Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Meta Robots to each post. This seems like it would be good for Search Engine Optimization.
I hope this information was helpful.
Do you use Meta Tags and where do you use them? Do you use a Meta Tag Plugin?
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Florence Mills
Louise
You can easily add metatag in wordpress.org blog by use “all in one SEO Pack” plugin. I already write in here http://letupdate.com/install-all-in-one-seo-pack-wordpress-plugin/ .
And we can check it in http://www.seoseven.com/
LetUpdate´s last blog ..Hide The Affiliate Link
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I use All-in-one SEO plugin Jim. Try it. It can write different meta tags for each of your pages and posts. That’s my only SEO.
Isaac | GoBlogger´s last blog ..The Secrets of Unique Blogging Voice
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Jim Hardin Reply:
September 8th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Great point guys. Plugins are a lot easier to use than writing code and the All-in-one SEO allows you to add keywords and descriptions to every post.
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The value of meta tags has decreased recently. A lot of people were doing spamming in meta so Matt Cutts and Google decided to lower their impact on serp…
Melvin´s last blog ..Your Blog Can’t Survive This Year
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Hey Melvin
Thanks for coming by. You know I had wondered about that cause I had read something that the use of meta tags is not as important as say providing good quality content. SEO is an amazing puzzle that I think keeps changing.
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Hey Jim,
Wow your blog has come a long way! I am so impressed with what you have managed to achieve here!
As far as meta tags, I use a WordPress Plugin called Platinum SEO. It is similar to All-In-One SEO but I think it’s better. But, like Melvin said, meta tags are holding less and less weight these days. The most important thing is the titles of your blog posts and your domain name itself. Those are the two things that are going to move you up the ranks in Google the fastest.
Great stuff! You really have progressed a lot!
Matt
Matt Wolfe´s last blog ..How To Schedule Posts For Later
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Jim Hardin Reply:
September 8th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Hey Matt!
I appreciate it.
Thanks for dropping by and the for the thoughtful comments
It is certainly a puzzle to perfect SEO. I believe you are right that Titles and the domain names are probably the most important with probably sprinkling just the right amout of keywords in your content. There are definately a few plugins that help with SEO. I have actually had the All-in-one SEO installed since the beginning and have been using it. As I did find another as I had stated in the post called Meta SEO Pack. I think I will take a look at the one you suggested and see which one I like the best.
Thanks again
Jim
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Jim,
Darn good post about Meta tags… Personally, up till now they’ve been a total mystery.
But I guess anything to help the search engines, help people find me the better.
Thanks for the tips,
Rob
Rob Canyon´s last blog ..How I Made $3758 In 21 Days Online… With My ‘Double Click Blueprint’ Strategy.
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Jim Hardin Reply:
September 9th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Rob
Every little bit helps
Yeah I don’t know how important they are in SEO as Matt and Melvin said they are not as important as say titles, but hey why not use them as it probably won’t hurt as long as you don’t abuse it
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Hi Jim!!!
Saw your post on twitter this morning about Meta Tags. Thanks for the reminder. I had updated one of my blog’s meta tags a while back and completely forgot to check the others.
I’m thinking about switching to WordPress and your post is a perfect reminder as to why. It sure seems easier to navigate “tips & tricks” with WordPress; not to mention I want my own domain name:)
Just in case I don’t make it back before the holidays, Enjoy the Season and thanks again, Louise
Louise´s last blog ..A Suitable Gift for Everyone?
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Jim Hardin Reply:
December 17th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Hey Louise!
I hope the post on Meta Tags helped. I think anything you can do will help to get your blog out there.
I do like wordpress and like having my own domain and everything. You should give it a try you might just like it better
. If you need a hand just let me know.
Happy Holidays to you too! Hope to see you around…..well I guess around the internet that is
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