The three most common meta tags that are used in web development are the title, keywords and description tags.  Over the course of the last decade there has been a lot of variation in the emphasis placed on each of these tags from a search engine optimization standpoint.

There still seems to be a little bit of confusion around the topic, so here is a breakdown of how the 3 most common meta tags impact search engine rankings at the time of this posting.

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The Title Tag

The title tag is the only tag that carries any real weight in terms of search engine placement currently.  It is an absolute must to include your main keyword phrase at the beginning of your title tag, and it’s not a bad idea to integrate a secondary keyword towards the end of the title as well if possible.  The more you are able to integrate these keywords while keeping the title readable, the better off you will be.

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The Keywords Tag

The keywords META tag has lost it’s power when it comes to the effectiveness of tags aiding in organic search rankings.  It was commonplace in the late 90’s to see sites jamming dozens, even hundreds of keywords into the title tag.  It didn’t take long for the search engines to realize that this tag offers no real value when it comes to delivering relevant results to searchers… and for that reason this tag has been dead for a long time.  Does this mean that adding keywords to this tag at all?  It’s completely up to you… I have tested both ways and neither seems to matter, so do what you please.

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The Description Tag

The description META tag does not add any value in achieving higher search engine rankings.  However, you still want to incorporate your main keyword phrases into it for a couple reasons.

1. Search engines like Google may or may not decide to use your META description as the site description that is displayed in search results (sometimes they use it… sometimes they grab other snippets of text from your site).  In order to attain the highest number of clicks from organic searches as possible, make sure this description is crafted in a manner that assures the searcher that your site provides content that is valuable and “dead on” in terms of what the searcher was searching for.
2. When the keywords in your description match the keywords searchers use in their queries, they will appear bolded in the page descriptions in the search results, which helps in attracting the attention of searchers and increases your chances of getting more click throughs from your organic listings.