That’s actually a pretty long answer, but the short answer is…

“Meta tags aren’t a big deal.”

In 1995 having well organized Meta Tags could skyrocket a site right into the number one spot on Google even for highly competitive keywords. Those days are gone. When I started specializing in CPA Website Design in 2002 Meta tags were already the fading stars of SEO.

What META Tags Are
Generically the word “meta” is used in technology as “data that describes other data.”

In web design, be it an accounting website or a family home page, a Meta Tag is an HTML tag that identifies the contents of a Web page for the search engines. Meta tags are hidden on the page, but they (as well as all the HTML code on a page) can be viewed by selecting View/Source or View/Page Source from the browser menu. Meta tags contain a general description of the page, keywords and copyright information.

What META Tags Aren’t
META tags are NOT magic bullets that will get you website good rankings. They were once, and there’s an army of scam artists claiming that they still are. Don’t be fooled. The days when you can get a good ranking just by fiddling with your META tags are LONG GONE!!! If you want to get good rankings you’ll need to put some hard work into it until you have a unique CPA website design with a strong domain authority and plenty of relevant incoming links.

What META Tags Do I Need?

Title Tag
A page’s HTML page title is it’s most important tag. Failure to put target keywords in the title tag is the main reason why perfectly relevant web pages with lots of good incoming links may be poorly ranked.

Searchers WILL SEE your title tag in their search results, so a string of keywords won’t do. Make your document titles as keyword rich as you can, but it also needs to read like a “headline”. It’s function is not just to tell the search engines what the page is about, it must also get people to click on it.

Your title tag can be as long as you want it to be, but the search engines will ignore everything after the first 7 or 8 words, so be succinct.

Keywords:
There’s no point in a long list of keywords any more. If the word’s not on a page title somewhere on the site you’re wasting your time putting it in your keyword list. Likewise, if a word IS on a page title somewhere on the site, even if it’s on a different page, it should be on your keyword list. Sorry, but spelling counts here, as does grammar. Each keyword (or shall I say key phrase) must be separated by a comma and a space.

When choosing keywords ask yourself what people are likely to search for. If you are optimizing an accounting website your target keywords are (in order of importance):

• Accounting
• Accountants
• CPA
• Tax

Trust me on this. I’ve done a lot of keyword research on websites for accountants.

Your target keywords should always be at least two or three words long. Many amateurs will try to optimize to a single word, such as “accounting.” This means you’re competing with accountants, indexes, and accountant’s vendors all over the country and your odds of success are exponentially lower. Don’t waste your time fighting for rankings against sites that aren’t really in direct competition with you! Pick phrases of two or more words, and you’ll have a better shot at success. Combine your primary keywords with your LOCATION. For example: “Hoboken Accountants”, and “Hoboken Accounting” will be SUBSTANTIALLY less competitive than “Hoboken”, “accountants”, and “accounting”.

Another option is to optimize to an industry specialty. For example “car dealer accounting” or “funeral home accountants”. You can even do both, as in “hoboken restaurant accounting”.

Page Description
Search Engine Description is more important than it used to be. The search engine description is the block of text that will appear on the search engine when your page comes up on a results page. Treat your page description like a headline. The purpose of your page description is to get people to click on the link to see your page. Keep it short and simple and try to include your most important keywords.

What Will This Do for Me?

Not much. All you are doing is telling the Search Engines what keywords you want that page indexed under. That’s it. Finito. It is not a guarantee that the search engines will index you well, or even at all, under those keywords. In short… if you want to optimize your site then you should take the time to organize your Meta tags, but unless you take the next steps you haven’t really done anything.

Don’t Fall for META Tag Scammers

There’s a lot of services out there that will tell you that they can get you “Top Rankings in the Major Search Engines” just by fiddling with your Meta Tags. This is a scam. All these companies are really any good for is charging your credit card.