Meta information is used to categorize and label web pages. Although it is not the end-all-be-all of search engine optimization (SEO), it is very important to the extent that it determines how sites are indexed by search engines and listed on the search engine result pages (SERPs). When your affiliate pages have the proper meta information attached to them, you are likely to get more organic traffic because your pages are more likely to (1) show up in relevant search results, (2) have the appropriate listing information when they do, and (3) experience higher click-through-rates (CTR).

Title Tag

This piece of information is simply the title of a webpage. The title tag should be used to describe the page it is actually for. It appears in two places that can affect how users convert:

1. At the top of a browser window.
meta_title_browser

2. As the title of a search engine result.
meta_description

There are two negative implications when your title doesn’t actually reflect the page that it is for: (1) you rank less effectively in the SERPs, and (2) users can become suspicious when their on that page.

Meta Description

The meta description is what generates the description in the SERPs (see screenshot above). However, search engines only read the first 140 characters. It’s important, then, to include in those first 140 characters information that you think is relevant to users searching for keywords that pertain to the page in questions. Think of it as a sales pitch: there should be descriptive information, product highlights, and anything else to encourage users to click through.

Meta Keywords

This set of meta info pertains to keywords that are pertinent to the page. Essentially, here you want to include the search queries that you believe are most common for users that might be looking for a page like the one you’re tagging.

Some people, however, don’t see this as an important field, and suggest ignoring it for two reasons: (1) the major search engines stopped indexing this field a few years ago, and (2) it tells your competitors what keywords you’re trying to rank for.

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