Posted by Stacy Miller, Dydacomp Search Engine Marketing Manager 

There are many types of Meta tags you can implement and utilize on your web pages to help engines digest the most relevant content on your site. Implementing proper Meta tags is an essential component of on-page website optimization, especially when you are trying to sell online goods and services.

More popular tags, such as Meta-titles and Meta-descriptions, are important to implement because they display the content in the search result when that particular web page of your site shows up in browser search results. Once ranking, the description tag content needs to address the searcher for your listing to catch the searcher’s attention. If there is no specified tag, the spiders will pull any text that can be found in the source code and index it for your listing content.

Character counts for Meta data – follow these guidelines for optimized search engine listings:
Meta Title Tag – 65 characters (summarize with most important keyphrases) plus domain address for branding!

Meta Description Tag – 155 characters (marketing pitch with most relevant keyphrases) – capture the click!

Meta Keyword Tag – 4-5 per product, 6-9 per department, 10-13 for the homepage maximum – no spamming!

Below are some examples for a better understanding of optimized meta tag content pulled from a Google search for ‘power tools’ and then just ‘tools’. Please note how the search phrase becomes bolded naturally in the results text:

1. Title Tags – they show in your listing and should be no longer than 65 characters so the verbiage does not get cut off in the most popular Internet Explorer browser page title section. This character count does vary by browser so better to be conservative here and not get your marketing message text cut off.

Listing Example: (ranked but not using full title tag text space for optimal marketing message)

 Optimized Listing Example: (utilizing specific search terms plus branded search keyphrase) 

 2. Description Tags – include your marketing content in the first 155 characters due to the fact that when your site receives a Google listing, the description text will be cut off with three dots… There are character count variations for Yahoo/Msn/Ask, but with Google being the most popular, it is best to optimize to shoot for natural listings with them first. See below…

 Listing Example: (the description text does not utilize maximum search marketing content space)

 Optimized Listing Example: (utilizes maximum text display for search-friendly marketing pitch for clicks) 

 3. Keyword Tags – not necessary but they do offer a high level of suggestion if your content relevancy. It is best to keep your keyword phrases specific to the content on the particular web page to maintain the highest relevancy factor.  Too many keywords can be noted as ‘keyword spamming’. Depending on number of products, here is a guideline:

• Home Page – 10-13 keyphrases at most
• Category Pages: 6-9 keyphrases at most
• Product pages: 4-5 keyphrases at most