Metatags: What These Have to Do With Search Engines Finding Your Business Website

We all use search engines such as Google or Yahoo to find a local restaurant, an airplane ticket, or a book we want to read.  What does this mean for those of us running an internet business?

We’d like the search engines to find our websites when someone types in a search term or question that is answered by our information, services or products.  And we’d like our website to be high in the list of possible website choices provided by the search engine.  The technology to rank higher in the search engine listings is called SEO – search engine optimization.

Ever since I learned about the most basic of SEO techniques – metatags – I’ve been obsessed checking the code in everyone’s site (with this handy little Firefox addon I have) to see if the site has the three most important metatags: title, description and keywords.  And it’s amazing how many sites do not have these.

You can think of metatags as signposts placed in a site’s coding to help search engines know what the site is about.  Many sites have the word HOME as their title tag.  Obviously this tells the search engines nothing.

But, for example, if your site is an online directory of best prices for new and used cars, you could have a title tag that says:  Online Car Dealer | Best Prices for New and Used Cars. Now the search engines know what your site is about.

When I first learned about the importance of metatags, I copied the format from Stephanie Chandler’s book The Author’s Guide to Building an Online Platform.  On page 28 she gives the example of her book’s metatags so readers can use this as a template for their own metatags.

Immediately I wrote my own metatags and emailed them to my web designer to insert in my site.  Then I learned that many, many web designers and programmers don’t include metatags in the sites they build because they weren’t hired to do SEO for the website.

Look up at the top of your browser when you are on your own website (unless you’re on a Mac, which doesn’t have this feature).  If all you see is the word HOME or the domain name of your site without any additional information, you’ll know that your title metatag is not optimized.

And then get a good title tag along with the description and keyword metatags on your site to help search engines find your business. - P.Z.M.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is a National Internet Business Examiner at http://budurl.com/internetbusiness as well as a book author, and her company http://www.MillerMosaicLLC.com provides internet marketing information with easy-to-implement solutions to promote your brand, book or business.

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