Meta tags are like a roadmap; they give directions to the Internet search engines that catalog your website. Properly structured meta tags, among other factors, contribute to more effective website rankings in the natural search results displayed by a search engine. It should be noted, however, that Google does not use the “keywords” meta tag for its main search results.

Leverage your most valuable keywords by including them in the title, description and keyword tags as well as the body of the web page text.

You can easily view your meta tags (in most cases) by following these simple steps:

• Open an Internet browser window
• Go to your home page or any web page you want to evaluate
• Select “View” from the top menu bar
• Select “Source” from the drop-down list of “View” options

Meta tag standards are established by the World Wide Web Consortium. A web page “document head” and “metadata” are addressed in Section 7.4 of the W3C Recommendations. The technicalities of meta tags are best discussed with your webmaster or an Internet marketing specialist.