Are Meta Tags as important or more important than Good Content?

[LegloLegal]

I can build a website using XHTML & CSS, however from there i'm getting to grips with how to rank the site high.

Just so someone could point me in the right direction which is more important?

A) Good Content
B) Good selction of meta tags & descirption

I am self taught on websites and i intend to learn more about the SEO, i just need a little shove in the right direction.

Cheers

Adam McGowan

>

 

[nass]

A, B and backlinks from relevant sites. You absolutely must have your title in good shape.

 

[Kneoteric_eSolutions]

I cannot comment (as I have no real proof to back it up and I don't want to send you the wrong way) on which one of the two would carry more weight in terms of rankings.

What I know for sure is that you would need both of them and others like quality inbound links with relevant anchor text, etc. All of them off course will have to center around your targeted keywords to derive maximum benefit.

To start with you will have to do an in-depth keyword research and competition analysis. Once you have done that you will have to work your way back to get everything else in place. Never hesitate to experiment as it is the best way to know what works and what does not.

The SEO process will have to be iterative, don't get to obsessed with rankings and focus on conversion.

 

[sabian1982]

The keyword meta information is pretty much pointless these days however your meta descriptions are pretty key- so write good meta descriptions, unique titles per page and good quality on page content.

 

[LegloLegal]

Cheers Guys, reading through your comments I am confident I know how to tackle the problems, I will more than likely add a book or two to my collection, but now know which to get etc.

Thanks for the comments about the appearance of the website as well, very much appreciated.

See you all at the top of google and yahoo soon

 

[fisicx]

A good SEO primer is available from SEOmoz: http://www.seomoz.org/article/beginners-1-page.

Ranking is all about relevence. If you have a page that is relevent to the search parameters then to stand a good chance of being in the SERP's. If you have some inbound links that endorse that page then you will get a bit of a boost.

If someone searches for 'skinned bananas' and you have that phrase in your page title, headers, main text, alt text and an inbound link from banana.com you should rank well. But if the search was for 'banana skins' you might not do so well.

 

[AndyBlack]

The title tag is very important. It is the first thing that tells the search engine AND the site visitor, what your website is about. You need to get this right. A good description will help from a user perspective. Apart from that, upload good, relevent and useful content to your site.

Remember that EACH and every page needs to have a different title tag and description.

Andy

 

[Mark_anderson]

Content and Meta tags both are important things, which plays a big role in seo. You can't ignore any of them.

Use of Meta tags: With the good keywords, meta tags helps page to be indexed in google/search engine. Without meta tags you can't get traffic, So its important. I can say its a sole of the page.

Content: If we move to content, it plays the big role in SEO, everyone knows. If you have a good content this will generate a sale for you.

Yes, First thing will bring the customer and the second thing will give you the sale. So you can't leave any of these.

 

[AndyBlack]

Without meta tags you can't get traffic, So its important. I can say its a sole of the page.

Sorry, but you are wrong. If you are referring to keyword metatags then you do not even need to include them on your page. They do no harm, but as far as ranking and getting indexed, it means nothing. MSN was the last one to take any notice of them, but now I'm not so sure they even do.

Meta title tag - YES! Description - Best to have! Keyword meta tag - Not really.

Andy

 

[fisicx]

The decscription metatag helps attract visitors but not used to calculate ranking. There is no guarantee that the SE will use your description, if the keyword is in your content but not the description then the SE may well extract snippets from the content. Nothing is fixed except the page title.

 

[edmondscommerce]

agree with everyone

title tag is by far the most important

after that I would say <h1> tags and content at the top of the source code

meta description is useful to set the text displayed in the SERPS

eg a call to action - CLICK HERE

keywords are basically useless, but bang some up there anyway if its not too much trouble