META Tags

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META Tags

Before we get to publishing our site, we need to discuss the topic of META tags, which are bits of HTML code embedded into a Web page. Search engines read these codes and use the information from the tags to index and describe your site.

Although there are a handful of different META tags available, we will be primarily dealing with the two most important ones: description and keywords.

The META description tag is used by certain search engines to summarize your Web site. (Other search engines use the first paragraph of text on your page instead, for their summary.) The tag can be up to 200 characters long, and should tell the reader what he or she will find on your Web site.

For example:

<meta name="description" content="Ima Teller is an award-winning storyteller who presents programs of folktales and participation stories to audiences of all ages throughout the Midwest.">
The META keywords tag helps aid certain search engines in indexing your Web site. These are also terms under which your site will appear when someone queries using one of those terms. In fact, it might be better to think of them as "keyphrases" rather than merely keywords.

For example:

<meta name="keywords" content="Ima Teller, storytelling, storyteller, Missouri, folktales, folk tales, stories, participation stories, myths, face painting">

Using the example above, even if there's no actual mention of "myths" or "Missouri" in the body of Ima Teller's Home Page, her site would still come up somewhere in the search results if someone queried using those terms.

You have the option of entering your META tags directly into the HTML code yourself, or letting FrontPage do it for you.

Editing Your HTML Code Directly

With your Home Page (index.htm) open, let's take a look at the page's HTML code by clicking on the HTML tab at the bottom of the page window. You should see a <head> section (near the top) which looks somewhat like the following:

<head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0"> <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"> <title>Your Page's Title</title> </head>

Using the format in the sample META tags above, go ahead and enter META tags for your site's description and keywords, so that your code now looks something like this:

<head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> <meta name="description" content="Ima Teller is an award-winning storyteller who presents programs of folktales and participation stories to audiences of all ages throughout the Midwest."> <meta name="keywords" content="Ima Teller, storytelling, storyteller, Missouri, folktales, folk tales, stories, participation stories, myths, face painting"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0"> <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"> <title>Your Page's Title</title> </head>

Save your page, and you're done!

Letting FrontPage Take Care of Things

Alternatively, you can simply let the software add the tags for you. Delete the lines that were added above, and click on the Normal tab at the bottom to return your Home Page (index.htm) to Normal View.

Right-click on an open area of your page and select Page Properties... from the Shortcut Menu.
Click on the Custom tab, and then click on the lower of the two Add... buttons (the one under User variables). This will bring up the User Meta Variable window.
In the Name field, enter "description". In the Value field, enter the text from our earlier example, then click OK.

Your new META tag now appears in the User variables list.
Repeat the process above to enter a "keywords" META tag.

Voila! You're finished! You can check this by going back and viewing your page's HTML code. You should see your newly-added META tags in the <head> section of your code.

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