Optimizing Meta Data

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Title tags are the most critical Meta Tag and are the only tags that will influence SEO. Title tags have a direct effect on search engine relevancy and ranking. Make sure that your keywords appear in your Title tag.

1. Character Limits – 65 or less. Including spaces. Sorry folks, if you write more your title will end with a “…” Some cases you can have up to 70 characters but just play it safe and stick with 65.
2. Keywords and key phrases – Make titles page specific. Use longer key phrases where possible. The more relevant your title is to content the better your pages will  rank, and obviously higher rank = more traffic.
3. H1 tag – Repeat your title tag in your headline. This will help with relevancy and communicate clearly that the audience has landed on the correct page.

The description will appear underneath the title tag on the search engine results page. The keyword being searched will appear  bolded when contained in the description tag or title tag.

1. Character Limits – Google will only display up to 160 characters included spaces  when it comes to descriptions. Yahoo and MSN will display a little more (165 and up to 3 lines) but stick with 160 as a max.
2. Visibility and Click through rate – Remember to sell to the audience. Use the title and description to hook visitors. It’s like a great commercial.
3. Visitors are not stupid – Tell the truth. Visitors will leave if your title and description do not match your actual web content.
4. Universal Descriptions – Do not do it. If the site content targets multiple keywords it is better to leave the description tag blank. Search engines will pull the keywords from the sites content and display the content that surrounds those keywords. These keywords will be bolded. Bolded information will always improve visibility and click through rate. Use discretion when using the description tag.

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