XGEN Meta Tag FAQ

XGEN META Tag Builder FAQ's
[META Tag Help | META TAG BUILDER UTILITY]

In an effort to serve you better, we have listed the most commonly asked questions about the XGEN Technologies META Tag Builder, and posted the answers below.

What are META tags?

How long should my META description tag be?

How does the META tag builder work?

Which keywords should I use?

I used your META tag builder but it did not put the tags into my site.

How do I put META tags into my site?

1. What are META tags?
META tags are a tool for helping a web site to get indexed correctly by many of the major spider based search engines. They are a couple of simple lines of code that go into the header of the HTML source document. Since spider based search engines index web sites based upon what they find in the HTML code of the site, META tags help to ensure that the visiting spider finds the information you want it to.

The two tags that are the most important are the "description" tag and the "keywords" tag. The description tag gives the search engine the description that you want for your web site. Without this tag, search engines will usually take the first text in finds from your site and make that the description. The keywords tag tells the search engine exactly which keywords you want your site to be searchable under. Without this tag, a search engine will choose words for your site to be searchable under from the title and text of your site.

It should be understood that META tags are not a turnkey solution for getting your site to the top of search engine lists. They will help to get your site indexed correctly and they increase the relevancy for the keywords you chose but they do not guarantee top placement.

2. How long should my META description tag be?
XGEN Technologies recommends that you limit your META tag description to 20-25 words or about 150-200 characters of text. Anything longer will be cut off in the middle of the sentence and will look less professional. One thing to avoid with this tag is the temptation to load the description tag with keywords for your site. This tag should be used to provide a short but colorful description of your site that will entice searchers to click on your link instead of your competitor if they come up next to each other in the search results.Try to use only the keywords that you feel are the most important in you description.

3. How does the META tag builder work?
The META tag builder, in many ways, works the same as the "robot spiders" that index pages for the search engines. When you hit submit, a little program is sent out to read the HTML code of that particular web page. An exact duplicate of that HTML source code is made and the properly formatted META tags and TITLE tag are put in place. Then, the updated code will be sent to your in an email. You can then take the improved code and update your site.

4. What keywords should I use?
Choosing the keywords for your site is an important step. You should put yourself into the shoes of your target audience and try to determine what keywords they are likely to search use when looking for a site like yours. Also, be aware that many words have more than one meaning. For example, a law firm using the keyword "injury" may find itself competing with a doctors office using the same word.

Here are more helpful tips to keep in mind when making your keywords selection:

When choosing keywords it is important to be specific. Usually, two-word and three-word phrases work better than single words. Words like 'travel' or 'software' are very vague and will put you in competition with hundreds of thousands (or millions) of other web sites that deal with these topics. Keywords like "Florida travel" or "contact management software" narrow the focus and give you a better chance of being found.
Don't overdo it with your keywords tag. The more words you put into this tag, the more you dilute the relevancy for all of the other words in the list. For better results, use different keywords for different pages within your site. Try to use words that are relevant to the information on that particular page and then submit each page to the search engines individually.
Keep in mind that most of the search engines are CASE SENSITIVE. This means that a search for "computers" will yield different results than "Computers". For common words, it is best to keep everything in lower case since a large portion of the population does not even capitalize most proper nouns in their searches.
Be careful with repetition. Many search engines will give you a 'spam penalty' if you repeat a word or phrase over and over. If there are words in the keyword list that you must repeat be sure to spread them out a little bit.

5. I used your META tag builder but it did not put the tags into my site.
Since we do not have access to your password protected server, XGEN Technologies cannot actually install the META tags into your site. What you have to do is enter the respective fields in our META tag builder and we will output the codes for you to include in your HTML file. Just paste the codes in between the HEAD Tags on your HTML file and upload it onto your server. it.

6. How do I put META tags into my site?
You need to have access to your site's HTML source code. You may FTP (File Transfer Protocol) your Meta tag into your site's source code. If you are using web site publishing software, you should consult with the software manual or software technical support.

If a webmaster or webdesign firm built your site, you would need to consult with them as to how you can implement these META tags. You can still use our free META tag service; all you need to do is forward the information on to the correct party.