Metatags: What these have to do with search engines finding your website

April 22, 7:16 PMInternet Business ExaminerPhyllis Zimbler Miller

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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. 

And here’s the amazing thing:  Ever since I learned about the most basic of SEO techniques – metatags – I’ve been obsessed checking 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.

Metatags are better seen than described, so here are the metatags from my site www.FictionMarketing.com:

<title> Fiction Marketing — Promote Your Novel, Poetry, Memoir and Stories Effectively and Frugally </title>

<meta name="description" content="Official site of nonfiction book proposal for Fiction Marketing Solutions: You Can Promote Your Novel, Poetry, Memoir and Stories Effectively and Frugally by book authors Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Phyllis Zimbler Miller." />

<meta name="keywords" content="fiction marketing, marketing fiction, book proposal, book marketing, marketing books, book promotion, novels, poetry, memoirs, short stories, Frugal Book Promoter, How to Do It Frugally, Call-to-Action Websites, Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, authors" />

When I first learned what the metatags terms meant, 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.  I wrote my own metatags and then emailed them to my web designer to insert in my site.

Subsequently I learned that many, many web designers and programmers don’t include metatags in the sites they build because they weren’t hired to SEO optimize the website.  (For the WordPress websites my company now builds for clients we automatically write the metatags for the client and include them on the site.)

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.

Get metatags for your own site now:  Use the format above, write your own metatags, and give them to your webmaster to insert into your site.  The search engines will thank you for this.

Of course, there’s the consideration of whether you regularly have fresh content on your site.  (Search engines love fresh content.)  But that’s a topic for another post. 

(c) 2009 Miller Mosaic, LLC

For more info:  If you want to check whether your website is missing other important elements, read my article HOW TO HAVE AN EFFECTIVE FIRST WEBSITE.