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 your 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?

The “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 SEE your title tag in their search results, so a string of keywords won’t do.  Your title needs to read like a “headline” as it functions to not just tell the search engines what the page is about, but 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.

Use keywords in your title tag that local prospects are actually likely to search for, like the name of your town, the abbreviation for your state, and service keywords that describe what you do. If you are optimizing an accounting website your target keywords are (in order of importance):

• Accounting
• Accountants
• CPA
• Tax Preparation
• Tax Planning

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

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”.

Meta Tags as seen while logged into Site Manager

The “Keywords Tag”:
There is a Meta Tag called a “Keywords Tag” (in this illustration this tag is labeled “Search Engine Keywords”) that used to be very important, but these days it’s virtually meaningless. Google doesn’t even look at keyword tags any more, and Yahoo and Bing barely give them a sideways glance. We still use this Meta tag as a formality (in case the search engines decide to start using them again) so don’t leave it blank, but don’t waste a lot of time on it either.

The “Page Description” Tag
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.

Again… 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 important keywords from the title tag.

This is my favorite tag. When you are writing a Page Description Tag you are writing more to the human element than to the search engine algorithm. It’s really the only point in this process where you get a chance to make a connection with the visitor without having to worry too much about what the search engines think. When someone does a web search it’s because they want something. Your page description is your best chance to convince a searcher that you can give them whatever that thing is!

Should I Use Different Meta Tags on Different Pages?

Your Page Settings

YES! Search engines prefer sites that have unique meta tags on unique pages. Whenever you add a new page or rewrite a standard page you should modify the Meta Tags for that page to reflect the actual content of the new page. If you have a CPA Site Solutions site you can access an individual pages Meta Tags from the site map by accessing the page settings for the page you modified or added. You will see that the settings for each page has it’s own “Search Engines” tab.

Don’t waste your time changing every Meta Tag on the site. If the page content isn’t unique there’s no point in optimizing the Meta Tags for it.

Have any comments about the use of Meta Tags? Let us know we would love to hear from you.

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