SEO: Meta Tags

Title Tag

The title meta tag is the most important of the meta tags. Not only does it carry a fair bit of SEO weight, but it is the text that appears as a link to your page in the search engine results.

Meta tags should be constructed carefully to look attractive and encourage the user to click your listing.
Make sure that you include the important keywords and phrases applicable to your web page.
Don't repeat a keyword excessively to avoid being penalised for keyword stuffing.
Place the more important words or phrase nearer the beginning of the title.
Don't include any words that don't actually appear in the text content of your page.
Aim for title tags containing fewer than 70 characters as this is the limit Google displays in search results. Title tags longer than 70 characters will either be truncated in the results, or search engines may choose to display different text from the page in place of the title tag.

Description Tag

The description tag is an important element of your page when it comes to search engine optimisation. Although not essential these days, it is advisable to put one in.

Make sure that the description tag reads okay to a human as these show up on search engine results pages. Most users will read at least some of the description before deciding to click to your page.
Don't stuff too many keywords in the tag as this could appear spammy to the search engines
Don't include any words that don't actually appear in the text content of your page.
Meta descriptions can be any length, but search engines generally truncate snippets longer than 160 characters. It is best to keep meta descriptions between 150 and 160 characters.

Keywords Tag

The keywords tag is ignored by the majority of search engines these days and has little relevance with those that do recognise it. Despite this it is still common practice to include it in your head tags and it certainly won't do any harm if constructed properly.

Make sure that you include the important keywords and phrases applicable to your web page.
Don't repeat a keyword/phrase more than once to avoid being penalised for keyword stuffing.
Keywords or phrases should be seperated with a comma.
Place the more important words and phrases nearer the beginning of the list.
Don't include any words that don't actually appear in the text content of your page.