Proper Use of Tags and Code

Tags and Meta-Tags

Proper use of tags is probably the simplest of the science of SEO techniques, but you would be surprised how many websites do not even include this level of optimization.

Tags are specific elements of a webpage, each with a particular purpose. The proper use of tags involves promoting a chosen keyword, or a variation of the keyword, in all of the tags of the page and within the body text of the page.

The main tags to optimize are the title and meta-description tags, the h1 tags and the alt tags.

The Title Tag

The title of the page is found in this tag. This title appears to the user in the blue, topmost portion of the browser (in the standard Internet Explorer browser). This is a strategic place to add keywords. The search engine assigns great importance to the title. The title should be unique for every page on the site, otherwise Google may index less pages from the site. Likewise, it should also contain keywords, but not just a list of keywords. The title should be composed of a logical, clear sentence and not keywords separated by commas, colons and such. Every title should contain one or two key expressions, preferably at the beginning of the title. When optimizing for Google, the title should preferably be no longer than 69 characters, as that is the maximum number of characters Google will display for the title in the search results.

The tag looks like this: <title> insert title </title>

The Meta Description Tag

A description of the page is provided in this meta-tag. This is not the place to put many keywords separated by commas, but a description of the page in one to two sentences. The sentences should be logical and focused, and should contain one or two keywords or expressions. The meta description should be unique for every page. The description in this tag is likely to be displayed to the surfer as part of the results of a Google search – if the search term that the surfer used matches a term in your description – although it does not appear on the website itself. You should therefore be particularly careful as to what you write in this tag – this is your chance to draw someone to click on your site! When optimizing for Google, the title should preferably be no longer than 156 characters, as that is the maximum number of characters Google will display for the description in the search results.

The meta-tag looks like this: <meta name=”description” content=”insert description”>

The Meta Keywords Tag

The keywords in the keyword tag used to be quite important to search engines. Over the last few years, this tag has become relatively insignificant to Google and most other search engines. If you do have keywords in the keyword tag, you should make sure that tag is not “keyword-stuffed” (containing many keywords), as that has the chance (although small) of impacting negatively on rankings.

The meta-tag looks like this: <meta name=”keywords” content=”insert keywords separated by commas”>

The Meta Content Type and Content Language Tags

These meta-tags tell the spider and the browser in which language and in which coding standard the site is written. These tags are important because they enable the spider to understand the contents of the site.

The meta-tags look like this:

The Meta Robots Tag

This meta-tag is intended specifically for the robot - the spider – which scans the site. The meta-tag is written in the following format:

In the “content” section must be one or more of the following parameters:

INDEX – tells the spider to index the page

NOINDEX – tells the spider not to index the page, but to continue and follow the links to other pages

FOLLOW- tells the spider to continue and follow all links

NOFOLLOW – tells the spider not to follow the links on the page

This meta-tag is useful for different circumstances, such as when one creates test pages on the site and does not want the spider to access them.

The name portion of the meta-tag contains the name of the spider to which the command is being directed. Every search engine has its own spider. When the parameter is just “robots”, it refers to all spiders.

Note: the default action for all spiders is to index the page and to follow the links. Therefore, it is not necessary to include a robots tag if the command is INDEX, FOLLOW.

The Heading Tags

These tags identify headings and sub-headings within the text on the page, oftentimes changing the visual aspect of the text (e.g. font size) and also identifying which text the spider should pay particular attention to. The top level heading is referred to as h1, the next as h2, and so on.

The tag looks like this: <h1> text </h1>

The Alternate Text Tags

These tags enable assignment of text to images. This is useful both for accessibility to people with visual disabilities who use audio aids to view websites, for people who use the internet with images off and to let spiders know about your images.

This tag is added into the image parameters as: alt=”text”

Clean Code

Clean, orderly writing of code is likely to have an effect on the spider’s scanning. The following are some principles to keep in mind:

Code to Text Ratio – the larger the ratio of code to text, the better.
Spaces in the Code – it is not recommended to use the space tag (&nbsp) too often in the code.
Empty Tags – it happens often that the website owner erases text but leaves its tags. Make sure to remove the tags as well.
Use of CSS – using cascading style sheets usually saves lines of code on the page and instead moves all of the style code onto special pages designated for such.
Wise Placement of JavaScript - if one uses JavaScript, it is recommended to store the code on other pages (e.g. an include file) and not on the page itself.
Frames – it is not recommended to use frames at all.
Iframe – this is a tag that enables display of the content of one webpage within the context of another. The content appears as if it is a part of the page, even though it is from another. It is recommended to use this tag in order to display parts of a page that include, for example, long programming code, to enable you to tell Google not to index that part of the page. Ordinarily one cannot block parts of a page, but with an Iframe, the spider sees it as a separate page.