© 2018 IJSRST | Volume 4 | Issue 9 | Print ISSN : 2395-6011 | Online ISSN : 2395-602X

Themed Section: Science and Technology

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) using HTML Meta-Tags

Dr. Birajkumar V. Patel , Dr. Raina D. Gaharwar
Department of Computer Science, Sardar Patel University, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, India

ABSTRACT

Search Engines are information providers; they are also referred as crawlers. Getting relevant and proper
ranked results is always major concern. There are different strategies for listings, either organic or PPC (Pay per
Click). Nowadays people specify HTML meta tags to influence listings. It is but obvious most relevant results
appear on first page of search results. So, how to get that place? Because, listings appear on first page always get
more hits.
Keywords: Search Engine Optimization, Crawling, Meta Tag, Ranking, Listing

I. INTRODUCTION engines (and users) determine relevancy? How does

site architecture help search engines? [3]
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of
increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to user Off-page strategy
website through organic search engine results. [1] Off-page ranking strategies are those that publishers
There are two major strategies covered by Search do not directly control. Search engines use these
Engines called as on-page analysis and off-page because they learned early on that relying on
analysis. publisher-controlled signals alone didn’t always yield
the best results. For instance, some publishers may try
Within each strategy there are sub-strategies, such as to make themselves seem more relevant than they are
a specific rank or pay-per-click strategies. SEO success in reality. [3]
factors work in certain combinations. No single SEO
factor will guarantee search engine rankings. Having a II. IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY CONTENT IN
great HTML title won’t help if a page has low-quality SEARCH ENGINES
content. Having many links won’t help if they are all
low in quality. Having several positive factors can Content quality [4]
increase the probabilities of success, while the Outcome of search engine may be in the form of text,
presence of negative factors can worsen those video, audio, images, news, etc. But the important
probabilities. [3] requirement is always quality content.

On-page strategy
Content search/keyword search
On-page search ranking strategies are those that are
Perhaps the most important SEO factor after creating
almost entirely within the publisher’s own control.
good content is good keyword search. People want to
What type of content do you publish? Are you
create content using those keywords, the actual search
providing important HTML clues that help search
terms people are using, so people can produce content
that effectively “answers” that query.

IJSRST184976 | Received : 10 August 2018 | Accepted : 28 August 2018 | July-August-2018 [ 4 (9) : 298-302]
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For example, a page about “Systems Analysis and across a broad range of subjects. This is horizontal
Design”, should describe about “System”, “System search, because the focus is across wide range of
Analysis”, “System Design” and also “Systems Analysis topics.
and Design”.
Content words/use of keywords Search Engines runs other specialized search engines
How often there is a repeat of each word people want that focus on images or news or local content. These
to be found for at least five to ten times or find out a are called vertical search engines because rather than
keyword density of 2 to 3 percent, for excellent covering a broad range of interests, they’re focused on
results. one segment, a vertical slice of the overall interest
spectrum.
Just use common sense. Think about the words people
want a page to be found for, the words you feel are When user searches on search engine, user will get
relevant from your keyword research. Then use them web listings. But you will also often get special
naturally on the page. sections in the results that may show vertical results as
deemed significant.
Content freshness
Search engines prefer new content. That’s usually Having content that performs well in vertical search
what people need mean when they require new can help people succeed when web page content does
content.” not. It can also help people to succeed in addition to
having a web page make the top results. So, make sure
People cannot update web pages or publish new date you’re producing content in key vertical areas
every day thinking that will make them “new” and relevant to user.
more likely to rank. Nor can people just add new
pages constantly, just for the sake of having new III. HTML CODE AND SEARCH ENGINE SUCCESS
pages, and think that gives new content. FACTORS

Sites can take advantage from new content to boost HTML is the underlying code used to create dynamic
performance by producing relevant content that web pages. Search engines can pick up ranking from
matches the real-time pulse of their domain. some specific HTML elements. Below are some of the
most important HTML elements to achieve SEO
Vertical search successful.
Web page listings are often referred as “vertical HTML title tag
search” results. These come from vertical search For example, that an author wrote 50 different books
engines devoted to things like images, news, local and but gave them all the same exact title. How would
video. If you have content in these areas, it might be anyone understand that they are all about different
more likely to show up within special sections of the topics? [6]
search results page.
For example, that an author wrote 50 different books,
Not familiar with “vertical search” versus and while they did have different titles, the titles
“horizontal search?” Let’s understand, It is a weren’t very descriptive — maybe just a single word
regular search engine gathers content from across the or two. Again, how would anyone know, at a glance,
web, in hopes of matching many general queries what the books were about? [6]

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HTML titles have always been and remain the most Structured data
important HTML signal that search engines use to If one could tell search engines what was the content
understand what a page is about. Bad titles on web about in their own “language”, behind the scenes, sites
pages are like having bad book titles in the examples can use specific markup (code) that makes it easy for
above. In fact, if HTML titles are deemed bad or not search engines to understand the details of the page
descriptive, search engine may change them. [6] content and structure.

HTML meta tag While the use of structured data may not be a direct
ranking factor, it is clearly a success factor. All things
Meta tags are snippets of text that describe a page’s
being equal, a listing with a rich snippet is likely to get
content; the meta tags don’t appear on the page itself,
more clicks than one without.
but only in the page’s code. People know tags from
blog culture, and meta tags are more or less the same
HTML header tags
thing, little content descriptors that help tell search
See the headline up at the top of the page. Behind the
engines what a web page is about. [7]
scenes, HTML code is used to make that a header tag.
In this case, an H1 tag.
The meta tag, one of the oldest supported HTML
elements, allows people to suggest how you’d like
See the sub-headlines on the page. Those also use
your pages to be described in search listings. SEO
header tags. Each of them is the next “level” down,
purists will argue that the meta description tag is not a
using H2 tags.
“ranking factor” and that it doesn’t actually help web
pages rank higher. Rather, it’s a “display factor,”
Header tags are a formal way to identify key sections
something that helps how results look if results appear
of a web page. Search engines have long used them as
in the top results due to other factors. [5]
clues to what a page is about. If the words user want
to be found for are in header tags, user have a slightly
A meta description that contains the keywords
increased chance of appearing in searches for those
searched for (in bold) may catch the user’s eye. A
words.
well-crafted meta description may help “sell” that
result to the user. Both can result in additional clicks
Naturally, this knowledge has caused some people to
to your site. As such, it makes sense for the meta tag
go overboard. They put entire paragraphs in header
to be counted as a success factor. [5]
tags. That does not help. Header tags are as much for
making content easy to read for users as it is for search
Be forewarned, having a meta description tag doesn’t
engines.
guarantee that web page description will actually get
used. Search engines may create different descriptions
Header tags are useful when they reflect the logical
based on what they believe is most relevant for a
structure (or outline) of a page. If web page have a
particular query. [5].
main headline, use an H1 tag. Relevant subheads
should use an H2 tag. Use headers as they make sense,
Meta Description Attribute - A brief description of the
and they may reinforce other ranking factors.
page. Meta Robots Attribute - An indication to search
engine crawlers (robots or "bots") as to what they
should do with the page. [6]

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IV. META TAGS FOR SEO  Meta Description Attribute - A brief description
of the page.
If user want to find out whether a given page is using  Meta Robots Attribute - An indication to search
meta tags, just right-click anywhere on the page and engine crawlers (robots or "bots") as to what
select “View Page Source.” [7] they should do with the page.

A new tab will open in Chrome (in Firefox, it’ll be a

Following are two important meta tags [8]:
pop-up window). The part at the top, or “head” of the
page, is where the meta tags could be. [7]  Meta description tags
 Meta keyword tags
There are four major types of meta tags worth
knowing about and we’ll talk about them all here. Some search engines may display the meta
Some are not as useful as they once were. Others are description as a part of the search results, but the
worth using regularly, and will very likely increase meta keyword tags should not appear in search
traffic. [7] results.

The four types discussed here are [7]: The general consensus among SEO experts is that
 Meta Keywords Attribute - A series of keywords meta tags are dead. Even so, many of these same
use deem relevant to the page in question. experts continue to use meta tags in their own sites.
 Title Tag - This is the text you'll see at the top of One can add the following in the web page [8]:
the browser. Search engines view this text as the
"title" of the page.

<meta name="keywords"
content="KEYWORD1 KEYWORD2 KEYPHRASE1 etc about 20 to 30 distinctive words">
<meta name="description" content="An accurate, keyword description about 100 characters">

Figure 1. Sample HTML meta tag script

Meta Description Tag Preferences [8]
 Use keywords in meta description tag. Meta Keywords Tag Preferences [8]
 Try not to repeat the words overly often, but
 Use synonyms.
try to use multiple syntaxes of your key
 Use unique keywords.
words.


No need to repeat any given phrase.
There should not be around 100 characters in
 One can repeat a word any number of time, as
a description meta tag of a single web page.
long as each time it is part of a different
 Use a different meta description tag for each phrase.
page, as each page is different and stands a
Use of Robots Meta Tag [8]
better chance of being found if user place a
The important meta tag that one may need sometime
good title and description on it.
is the Robots Meta tag which looks like this:

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 Dr. Birajkumar V. Patel et al. Int. J. Sci. Res. Sci. Technol. 2018 July-August-201; 4(9) : 298-302

<meta
name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">
Figure 2. Sample HTML meta tag script [8]

Using the above meta tag, one can tell a spider or a [4]. https://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/content
robot that people do not want some of their pages -search-engine-ranking Accessed: June, 2018
indexed. [5]. https://searchengineland.com/guide/seo/html-
code-search-engine-ranking Accessed: June,
V. IMPORTANCE OF META DESCRIPTION
2018
[6]. https://www.google.com/search?ei=rtkoW82YLc
A meta description can influence the decision of the iBvwT0l6uwAw&q=seo+using+meta+tags&oq=s
searcher as to whether they want to click on search eo+using+meta+&gs_l=psy-
results or not. The more expressive, attractive and ab.1.0.0.530768.534404.0.536183.12.8.0.4.4.0.48
relevant the description will get more clicks. 5.1502.0j1j2j1j1.5.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-
ab..4.8.1053...0i67k1j0i22i30k1.0.mAuGrx43L94
Accessed: June, 2018
VI. CONCLUSION
[7]. https://www.wordstream.com/meta-tags
Accessed: June, 2018
Search Engines people use for information gathering,
[8]. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/seo/seo-
marketing, learning, enterntainment, etc. The
optimized-metatags.htm Accessed: June, 2018
important matter is better ranking and proper listings.
[9]. https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/05/26/how
Use of HTML meta tags may influence performance
-to-write-meta-descriptions-for-seo-with-good-
and can give better listings with proper rank. This
and-bad-examples/ Accessed: June, 2018
improves number of clicks and number of visitors.
[10]. Deepak Bansal, A Complete Guide to Search
This is also helpful to provide relevant results to users.
Engine Optimization, B. R. Publishing
VII. REFERENCES Corporation

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