If you want more visitors to your website, you need quality Meta Tags or your competition will be getting your business.

There are many kinds of Meta Tags. However, for a website there are a few which are extremely important when it comes to how search engines rank and display a website in the search results. Without proper Meta Tags, a website listing on the search engine’s results can be so confusing or irrelevant that someone looking for your product or service will not click on your search engine listing.

A recent search on Yahoo using the words “Spring Candy” provides an excellent example of what happens to a website’s listing when no Meta Tags are used.

EXAMPLE #1

Welcome to springcreekcandy.com

©2006 The Dalton Brothers’ Spring Creek Candy Company …

www.springcreekcandy.com – 4k – Cached

Example #1 used a Title Tag <title>Welcome to springcreekcandy.com</title> but didn’t use a Meta Description Tag. Without a Meta Description Tag the search engines read the website page and take whatever readable content is available. The only readable data the search engine found and displayed was located at the very bottom of the website.

If you were searching for a good website that sold spring candy, would you click on that link? Most likely you would not, and would continue looking at other listings in the search results to click on.

The next listing on the page was one that used proper Meta Tags.

EXAMPLE #2

Palm Springs Candy Company – Home

Palm Springs Candy is made completely by hand using the founder’s original recipes. … known as the ‘FUN IN THE SUN CANDIES’, we continue to specialize in the finest …

www.palmspringscandyco.com – 8k – Cached

The Example #2 website used a Title Tag: <title>Palm Springs Candy Company – Home</title> and also used a Meta Description Tag: <META Name=”description” Content=”Palm Springs Candy is made completely by hand using the founder’s original recipes. Our bakers continue the tradition of quality using only fresh creamy butter, the finest imported fruits, and rich dairy cream and roasted nuts. We invite you to taste the tradition – Palm Springs Candy Company simply the best.”>

The search engine used both the Title Tag and the Meta Description Tag information to create the search listing shown above. The search engine also read the page and added the second sentence of content to the listing.

Now when you compare the two search examples listed above, which of the two listings do you think potential customers would click on? The second listing is far superior in it description, thereby generating a lot more site visitors and more sales for the Palm Springs Candy Company.

So, does your website have the right META TAGS?