[office politics]

I'm thinking of adding meta keyword and desciption tags to a site. Does anyone have suggestions on what to do first, second, third to complete this process?

off the top of my head, i think i'll need to create a list of keywords for each page. this would be describe the page in one or two word phrases. how many should be added?

Then go ahead and write one or two sentences to summarize the page.


also, is there a site to see how the search engine reads our page?

[synergy]

Here is the code for what you need:

<meta name="Description" content="one to two sentence description" />
<meta name="Keywords" content="keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3, etc., etc." /> 

It doesn't matter what order you have them in, you just need to put keywords with the Keywords name and description with the Description name.

Some search engines will blacklist for using too many keywords, so stick to like 10-15 good words.

Here is a search engine simulator site:
Search Engine Spider Simulator

[Larry]

i would spend only about 15-30 seconds on both, the keywords and the descriptions.

I would spend whatever time neccessary on the title tag, h1 tag and your internal links (the archor text)

those 3 items will have the MOST weight , MOST impact on your ranking, when it comes to on page SEO

good luck

[office politics]

thanks to you both. rep for synergy.

[synergy]

Thanks! Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Shame]

Well, I only have one bit of advice for your website.

Know it up and down, be very descriptive.

In the keywords, add anything that may even describe your site just a bit.

You never know what some one might type into Google, to find what they're looking for.

[leftcoasttech]

Originally Posted by synergy

Here is the code for what you need:

<meta name="Description" content="one to two sentence description" />
<meta name="Keywords" content="keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3, etc., etc." /> 

It doesn't matter what order you have them in, you just need to put keywords with the Keywords name and description with the Description name.

Some search engines will blacklist for using too many keywords, so stick to like 10-15 good words.

Here is a search engine simulator site:
Search Engine Spider Simulator

is that litterally 10-15 words, or is 10-15 phrases still within an acceptable range?

[synergy]

Originally Posted by leftcoasttech

is that litterally 10-15 words, or is 10-15 phrases still within an acceptable range?

There's no set amount. You want distinct words that describe your site.

When it really comes down to it, your site's text and content is more important than the meta data. The more relevant keywords you have within your site, the better organic ranking you will get.

[leftcoasttech]

I heard you can get penalized for having too much meta data though.

[synergy]

Some search engines might drop you if there are too many keywords. Google doesn't even use keywords though, so as I said before, it's more important to have good keywords within the content.

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking