Learning about HTML Tags

The HTML tag is one of the most important "On Page" factors for optimizing your website for better results. When a search engine bot reviews your web pages, the HTML tags help to define what is important about a webpage.  You can think of this similarly to what your know about a the index page of a book, or the contents page of a magazine.  The index page of your favorite will define what each chapter is about, and in just a few words hopefully define what the chapter is about.  So, as you read on we will define some of the more important HTML tags and how they apply to your webpages.

The Most important tag, The Hyperlink or <a> tag  

The <a> tag is covered on many pages throughout this website.  The reason for this is that it is valued so highly by all search engines, and a great way to add that extra identification about what your internal pages are about.

• The <a> tag includes what is commonly referred to as the "link text".  The link text is the actual text that is clickable on your webpage.
• The link text of a hyperlink should clearly define what the landng page is about.  So, if we place a hyperlink on this website linking to this page the link text may be one of the following:
  
  
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  The <a> tag is a great way define the important content and ultimate keywords for your website.  Don't overlook their importance and make sure that they make sense.
• Don't overuse a keyphrase within a hyperlink.  For example when you link to a page, don't always use the same link text.  Make your webpages flow and don't allow them to become too predictable.

The Heading tags { <h1>,<h2>,<h3>,etc.)

• The heading tags listed about are the most important formatting tag on a webpage.  This doesn't mean that you should over use them, exactly the oposite.  To be successful with heading tags you should use them very sporatically.  As a generally rule you should only use 1 <h1> tag on a webpage, then you can use 1 or more h2 tags and so on.
• You should use 1 <h1> tag on every page that you make.  Not only should this be the most prominently colored text, or largest text, but it should highlight what the page is about.  It is a great way to define to the search engines about your webpage.
• Changing the formatting of a webpage is very easy using CSS.  The way that CSS works is that you set formatting styles for tag in a CSS file.  So, you will set the font color, size and type with the CSS file and it will instantly change the display of all H1 tags on the website.

To use <strong> or <bold> tags?

• The <bold> and <strong> tags appear to be the same to the viewer of your webpage.  However, these common tags are not always the same as viewed by the search engine.  The <bold> tag is more commonly looked at by engines as a formatting tag, and not a content defining tag.  The <strong> tag on the other hand is more frequently thought to add value for SEO purposes.  The optimizer will want to use HTML tags as <strong> for those important keywords or phrases that you want to attract attention.
• Now just as with the heading tags above you never want to overuse an SEO technique as it can definitely hurt your website.

The <image> tag, make it count

• Make your image tags count by adding an alt attribute.  The alt attribute is a text description of what the picture is about.  Keep the description short to 7 or fewer words.  If your image links to a page about pottery, then your alt tag can say something like:

• Use the alt tag for all images wrapped within a hyperlink.  This is a <a href=/link.html><img alt="This is a short description of the image"  src="/images/img.gif" border="0"></a>

The <i> Italic tag

While the <italic> tag is a lesser important tag, it is still a part of a good SEO campaign.  You should use it from time to time to highlight important phrases or keywords.  Now, please note that you do not need to use this tag on every page but instead keep it readily available in your SEO toolbox.

The HTML tags that you use on your website are very important in determining where you will rank for your high value search terms.  It is important that you use some of these techniques to make sure that your webpages are built for what the search engine is expecting.