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  • Beginners guide to Search Engine Optimization (Part 2)

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    SEO- Keyword Research and Tagging (Part 2)

    In the second section of this post we throw light on some of the most important tags of SEO. If used correctly these are sure to give you a head start n the content marketing domain.
    Header Tags

    Heading tags differentiate the heading from the rest of the content. These tags are also known as HTML header tags, head tags, heading tags and SEO header tags. The most imperative heading tag is the h1 tag. In HTML coding the header tags from h1 to h6 form a hierarchy. This means that if you skip any tag numbers (ie. jump from 1 to 4) the heading structure will be wrecked, which is not ideal for on-page SEO.

    <h1> Website Design Basic</h1>
    <p> Here is some text</P>
    <h2> HTML</h2>
    <p> Here is some text </p>
    

    Title Tags

    Although the title tag appears in the head block of the page, it isn't actually a meta tag. The title tag is a required page element whereas meta tags are optional page descriptors. An SEO friendly title tag can be achieved when the content of your title tag echoes the content of your web page whilst containing your keywords ideally at the its beginning. Users identify the web sites that are likely to contain the information they are searching for within the list of web sites on a SERP. As web browsers use the title tags to label their tabs, users ultimately read the content of title tags to locate the tab in their web browser which contains the site they want to view.

    <html>
    <head>
    <title>HTML Reference</title>
    </head>
    <body>
    The content of the document......
    </body>
    </html> 
    

    Meta tags

    HTML meta tags are page data tags that lie between the open and closing head tags in the HTML code of a document.The text in these tags is not displayed, but tells the browsers (or other web services) specific information about the page. It is a simple explanation of the page so a browser can understand it.

    <head> <title>Not a Meta Tag, but required anyway </title> <meta name="description" content="Awesome Description Here"> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"> </head>
    

    The Description Meta Tag

    Search engines retrieve the content placed in the meta description tag to display it as the website description in their SERP. The length of meta description content that is displayed in the SERP varies with different search engines, it is recommended not to exceed 160 characters. Although Google does not use the content of meta tags for their web ranking, the presence of keywords in the meta description attracts search traffic by gaining the attention of users.
    From a usability point of view, descriptive, honest and different meta descriptions for each page on your site is a must. As stated above, users will see the content of the meta description in their SERP. If they see several listings from the same site with the same meta description then they will have a problem in identifying which link to click. Additionally if they access a site via the SERP because the content of the description is appealing but what they find is different from what they perceive, then this too will have a negative effect on the user experience.

    <meta name="description" content="Awesome Description Here">
    

    The Keywords Meta Tag

    The only search engine that looks at the keywords anymore is Microsoft's Bing and they use it to help detect spam. To avoid hurting your site, your best option is to never add this tag. Or, if that's too radical for you to digest, at least make sure you haven't stuffed 300 keywords in the hopes of higher search rankings. It won't work. If you already have keyword meta tags on your website, but they aren't spammy, there's no reason to spend the next week hurriedly taking them out. It's OK to leave them for now just take them out as you're able, to reduce page weight and load times.

    <meta name="keywords" content="HTML, CSS, XML, XHTML, JavaScript"> 
    

    Image Alt Tag

    Loading up images with keywords so as to enhance visibility on SERPs in the following way:

    <a href=http://heartifb.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/sachinjoshi.jpg><img alt=**sachinjoshi** src=http://heartifb.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/sachinjoshi.jpg width=599 height=409 /></a> 
    

    By default, the upload tool may fill in the img alt text with the title of the image . You can modify the image tag so that it is more keyword rich:

    <a href=http://heartifb.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/sachinjoshi.jpg><img alt= sachinjoshi crazy love, sachinjoshi shirtless, sachinjoshi shirtless, sachinjoshi body, sachinjoshi abs src=http://heartifb.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ryangoslingryanreynolds.jpg width=599 height=409 /></a>
    

    Title Attribute

    The title attribute can be used to describe any HTML element. A fine way to use the title attribute for SEO purposes would be to use it in the link element to provide descriptive text within an anchor tag (which gives you more real estate for your targeted keyword phrases). I would suggest not duplicating your anchor text (for usability purposes). It's supposed to provide additional information and informs users where the link will direct them if they click on it. When creating your link titles, optimize for keyword phrases youre targeting on the linked to page (just as you would with anchor text). Search engines only use them in consideration to the page being linked to, not the page the link is on.

    Anchor Tag

    The anchor tag or the (a) tag, is one of the most important html tags in terms of SEO. Links (both internal and from external websites), are built on it. The anchor text used under the (a) tag will dictate the Page Rank of your website, and define the subject matter of a web document from a search engine bot point of view.

    <a href=http://www.findnerd.com/ title=seo guide for beginners>seo guide for beginners</a>
    

    Robots Meta Tag

    The robots meta tag lets you specify that a particular page should not be indexed by a search engine or if you do or do not want links on the page followed.

    <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">
    <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX, NOFOLLOW">
    <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, FOLLOW">
    <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX, FOLLOW">
    

    Stay tuned for more on Search Engine Optimization. Your comments are welcome what your methods of keyword research are and please add any additional tags that you think I have missed out on.

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