Meta Tag Recommendations

Meta tags once held the distinction of being the primary realm of SEO specialists. Today, the use of meta tags, particularly the meta keywords tag, has diminished to an extent that search engines no longer use them in their ranking of pages. However, the Meta description tag can still be of some import, as several search engines use this tag to display the snippet of text below the clickable title link in the results pages.

In the image to the left, an illustration of a Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) shows the use of the Meta description and title tags. It is on this page that searchers generally make their decision as to which result to click, and thus, while the Meta description tag may have little to no impact on where a page ranks, it can significantly impact the # of visitors the page receives from search engine traffic. Note that Meta tags are NOT always used on the SERPs, but can be seen (at the discretion of the search engine) if the description is accurate, well-written and relevant to the searcher's query.