SEO Part 2 | Explanation of MetaTags, Keywords and Back Links

Meta Tags:
These are the most important items, listed by importance:

1. Title Tag:  This could better be called your "headline".  It is what shows people your page is about.  A good rule is to try using your primary keyword at the beginning and your secondary keyword at the end.  Keep it to 8-10 words and/or 5-80 characters.  Make it relevant to your page.
2. Meta Description Tag: Shows up under the title tag in search results.  Keep it 25-30 words and/or 160-180 characters.  I suggest making it informative and attention-grabbing so people click to visit your site rather than the one below or above you.
3. Meta Keywords Tag:  Keywords were once THE thing. Nowadays, their importance for rankings are greatly diminished. They still help some to show search engines what you're hocking, but they aren't near as important as they once were. Keep keywords to 7-10 words; otherwise, Google and other search engines will see it as "stuffing". Google says, "Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google's search results. Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context."
4. Heading Tag: Your heading tag is designed to tell the page topic. It's larger than the page text and you need careful attention to formatting for it to blend in well with the rest of your site page. Too large and bold will look intrusive and unsightly. Though they are listed fourth in importance, search engines will identify the words that are more important than the rest of the page text. The theory is that headings will sum up the topic of the page, so they are counted as important keywords.
5. Image Tag: Image tag is used to place photos on your page. I use short file names, but am not against tagging your photo files with longer names on the chance the search engines pick them up. Instead of fruit.jpg I can use martha-fruit-stand-pineapple.jpg. The alt words for images should be only 70-80 characters. The alt word is description of image so if a browser can't see the photo for some reason, the person will see the "alt" words instead and know what was supposed to appear there.
6. Anchor Text Tag:  Anchor text are the words between tags that point to some other page, e-mail, etc.  For example, if you wanted to tell someone to "click here" to visit your contact page, you could say "Visit Martha's Fruit Stand Contact Page" instead of the old-style "Click Here".

Reputable Links (Back Links)

Getting high quality back links is very important.  When another site/page has a link to your site, Google sees that as a "vote".  Ways to get your link on other sites is to use Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media, Blogs (if you have time; blogs take consistent effort and creativity to keep them alive), visit forums that have to do with your products or services and post your link there (comment on someone else's post and say "you can also visit my site . . . " or other non-intrusive wording), add your link to directories such as LinkedIn, del.icio.us, etc.  The good and bad news is that all you have to do is get your site linked in thousands of places to be popular!  This shows why I charge separately for this part.  Though it helps SEO, it isn't part of the normal web page set-up/coding.  It can be very time consuming as joining directories, forums, etc. typically involves setting up user accounts, writing a good title, verifying your account setup through e-mail, submitting your request and entering a captcha code to prove you're human and not an automated bot, and finally verifying your submission via e-mail.