Hi this is a simple question but i am new to the website building game!
Im trying to get my site listed on a search engine and i think to do that i need meta tags?! (i think) for my keywords- the problem is im not sure exactly where they go in the text editor of my site can any1 help?
Also when i have placed my meta tags in the right place is that all i need to do for a search engine to list my site?? (or is it not as simple as that?)
Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks!

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Meta tags should be placed "head" tag and the "head" tag terminator. But it looks like your forcing them into the body of your page. I don't know if Meta tags added to the body are recognized by a search engine. They are in the wrong place and there is an error in them.

It appears you only have one page so far, and you are using the Layout based Website Wizard to create your site. In your case, access to the "head" structure is provided by the Wizard's "website details" link. In that link you can add Title, Author, Description, and Keyword meta tags. You just add the Meta tag content and the Wizard will do the rest, when you "publish". It's important to add them this way, so they are inserted in each of your pages correctly. Do not try to use the Visual/Text editors on a Wizard creation. Those editors are not compatible with the Wizard and will only cause problems.

Being included in a search engine depends on many things. If you do nothing at all, the search engines will eventually find your site. But that can take several months. Users usually want to speed that up a bit, and submit their site directly to the various engines. You should be able to open an account on say Google.com, and add your site to their search queue. They also have some free tools to help get listed. Once your added to the queue, you need to wait until your site is indexed. The time for this to happen can vary. In the mean time, make sure your site has good content. Search engines rely more on content than Meta tags. Every keyword you put in a meta tag, should be somewhere in your web site's content. Having too many keywords that don't pertain to your site can cost you in ranking.

Once your site is indexed, it will start showing up in searches that relate to your site. But don't expect page one right away. Until you start getting some traffic and activity, your site may not show up until page 10 or 20. It takes a while to get a good showing on search engines. For example, my main site always turns up on the first page of a search, that relates directly to it's content. But my site has been running for over 5 years and gets over 20,000 hits a month. That kind of traffic and search engine ranking doesn't happen over night. And, I have no meta tags, and have never needed to submit my site. It's all about content, content, content,...

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Thankyou for your detailed reply, it will be very helpful. Wow you get 20,000 hits and have never submitted to a search engigne or used meta tags! that is very impressive- when you say its all about content would it be safe to say- the more content i have the faster i will come up on searches or as you said is it just being patient as the site will be found eventually by search engines (how does this happen by the way?)
Also (although apparently in the wrong place) some of my meta tags are words which are not mentioned on my actual site- you mention this can and eventually will affect my ranking on search engines- how is this please?

Many thanks

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My main web site (k7mem.com) has a rather narrow focus. And, some pages are more popular than others. To help see how your site is progressing, it's a good idea to have a good "stat" counter. I use a free service from AddFreeStats.com. I don't actually display a hit counter. Most users find that kind of thing obnoxious. But the stats tell you everything you need to know about your visitors. Where they are from, what pages they viewed, how long they stayed, and much much more. You can use this information to rework pages that think are important, but don't seem to be very popular.

But, a good ranking didn't happen over night. It took several months for my site to start showing up. But once it got noticed, and other users started linking back to it, the ranking started to go up. I find my site referenced in dozens of blogs and forums, that also relate to my site. Many of the blogs and forums are in languages that I don't understand. That site is also included in several publications. Again, publications that are related to the site.



No, having a lot of content does not speed up the process. Search engines crawl the web looking at old sites, for new material, and looking for new sites. You just have to be patient. If you want to speed up your search engine presence, have your site linked to by other sites. Preferably, other sites that are similar to yours or cover similar material.

You are also a major source for the search engines. Search engines regularly scan popular forums, like this one. That's why you get forum spammers, like the one who posted May 26, in this forum. They make it sound like a legitimate post. But all they want to do is get their web site listed, so the search engines will pick up on it. Sometimes they get visibility from visitors that are just curious. Bravenet isn't very good at deleting these things, unless someone complains directly about it.

So it is important to ALWAYS include the URL to your web site. You don't need a email address. That will only get you lots of spam. But your web site URL is important. Include it in everything you do on the net.



Initially, search engines depended on meta tags to profile a web site and index it for searches. But many web sites have abused the meta tag so much, that search engines do not put a lot of weight on meta tags any more. There are many search engines that completely ignore them. One or two words in a meta tag that is not listed on your site, will not be a problem. But repeating keywords and using keywords that have nothing to do with your site, will be a problem. Search engines look for something called "keyword stuffing". A good example of how to get banned from Google for "keyword stuffing" is highlighted at this site, mattcutts.com/blog/avoid-keyword-stuffing. And it shows that , "keyword stuffing" can be accomplished with meta tags and can be hidden in the body structure. A google search on "keyword stuffing" will give you lots of information.

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