In the simplest of terms, meta data refers to text that is placed in the ‘meta tags’ of an HTML document, also known as your web page, and provides specific information about that HTML document. It is seen by the search engines but not necessarily by end-users (unless they know how to ‘View Page Source’).
In search engine optimization the meta data is used to help search engines access and index documents. Information about the web page that may be used by the search engines could include:
- <title>Business Development Tips, SEO & Effective Marketing Strategies</title> – title of the page as it appears in your web browser
- <meta name=”description” content=”A site devoted to helping business owners make the most of their online marketing, seo and website opportunities.” /> – a description of the page content
- <meta name=”keywords” content=”business development, marketing tips, seo” /> – although not part of a search engine’s indexing algorithm anymore, it is still a good idea to include them to ensure your page content remains highly focused on the keywords listed here, which shoukd be the ones in your strategic campaign for this page
- <meta name=”robots” content=”index,follow” /> – Meta Robots Tag is used to allow or deny the search engine bot access to scan and index the web page content
Search engine optimization ensures that all relevant meta data contains the information most desired by the search engines for scanning and indexing web page content.
