On-page optimization enhances the content of your website. It is related directly to the content and structure of the website. Normally the web pages contain Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) or other document formats that are indexed by search engines like, Microsoft Word or PDF formats. The main idea behind on-page optimization is to remove redundant HTML codes and to restructure the site in such a way so as to produce better linked and focused page content. These are very simple steps that anybody can learn and implement. Step 1, title optimization, was discussed in my previous article. Here, the topic chosen for discussion is Meta tag optimization.

We all know that the web pages are created through tags. Meta tags are very important from the SEO stand point because the spiders cannot see the webpage but can read the content of the tags. So, optimization of the Meta tags content has an important role to play in search engine optimization.

Meta Tags Optimization

Meta description contains a summary of your website and focuses on the products and services that your business is specialized in. If this description is appealing to the reader, then he/she is sure to go through the website in more detail. The way the description is written is important because if it is too monotonous or generic the reader will simply ignore and move away from the website. So a lot of time is spent in creating keyword and description Meta tags. Yahoo uses the description tag to provide a summary of the site in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). It is not used for ranking pages.

Google, Yahoo! and Bing use the text they find on the page as a description. So, take care to ensure that your first header and the sentences that follow describe the contents. The importance given by search engines to Meta tags is not very clear. It is always better to write the first few paragraphs very well as search engines give more prominence to the content at the top of the page and some consider only the first few paragraphs.

Points to remember when writing a Meta Description

• Give a crisp description about your website. It places you at an advantageous position in SERP.

• Keywords can be included as they give you some advantage in Google’s relevancy algorithm.

• If you have not included you contact number in the title tag you can include it in the description tag.

Other HTML Tag Optimization

Apart from the title and the description, the content of the website should be divided into sections with appropriate headings and subheadings. Set the important headings as level 1 heading and the sub-headings as level 2 or 3 headings by using appropriate HTML tags. The text to be emphasized should be made bold, italic, etc. The spiders give a lot of importance for the text within the header tags. So make sure they include the important keywords.

Meta tag optimization makes sure that the content of the website is clearly understood by the reader and also ensures that the spider can easily assess what the website contains. Be sure to make use of the added advantage in your search engine optimization.

In my next article "On-page optimization: Step 3 – Keyword Optimization" there is a lot of information on how keywords can be used for search engine optimization. Don’t miss it!