The Meta keyword and description tags are both found in the Head section of your web page code.
Meta keyword and description tags are not a magic bullet that will rocket your site to high rankings, but they are an important factor in optimizing your web site for search engines and search engine users. The information in these tags can influence how search engines view your site, and optimally the description that you write will show up in search engine listings. For more on exactly what Meta tags are, read this article titled Magic with Meta Tags and Search Engine Optimization.
Meta Description Tag
For the Meta description tag, write a short blurb with targeted keyword phrases that will entice users to click through when your site comes up in the search engine results. For example:
- “design stuff: Things that will help you learn about sites and stuff, wow!” is not a good meta description. It’s vague, says nothing about why I would want to visit this site, and is frankly kind of silly.
- This is better: “Ten steps to search engine friendly site design – free search engine optimization tutorial.” There's good, descriptive keyword phrases here, and it’s obvious what the site is about.
Meta Keyword Tags
Meta keyword tags should be handled with caution. Don’t stuff your meta keyword tags with a hundred different spellings or tenses of the same three words, and don’t pack your keyword tags with irrelevant keywords that have nothing to do with your site’s purpose (this is called spamming and search engines don’t look too kindly on it).Be very stingy with how many times you repeat a word, and don’t repeat a keyword more than twice. Overall, don't spend a ton of time on either of these two tags - yes, they ARE helpful, but in the grand search engine scheme of things, they don't add enough value to really go nuts over.
